


The Ineffable Game

by WorseOmens



Series: Omens On Baker Street [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crimes, Crossover, Fluff, General idiocy, Humour, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, established relationships - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-09-23 12:36:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 65,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20340223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorseOmens/pseuds/WorseOmens
Summary: Sherlock and John are no longer the only crime-solving disaster duo in London.After Sherlock unknowingly wrongs a demon, he finds himself with two mysterious rivals in the detective scene. For Crowley and Aziraphale, it's just a bit of fun, but they end up learning more about human nature than they bargained for.(BBC Sherlock/Good Omens crossover; The Ineffable Husbands try their hand at consulting detective work)





	1. New Habits

Since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, Crowley's behaviour had changed somewhat. No longer needing to spread evil, he now confined himself quite happily to acts of minor mischief, of no real harm to anybody. Not that that wasn't what he was doing before; it's just that now, his pranks were on a far smaller scale. No more bringing down London's phone lines, or clogging up the traffic on all main roads. It was just coins glued to the pavement and whoopie cushions from here on in. After a while, once his old state of mind faded even further, he even began to do good deeds.

Aziraphale was thrilled. The two of them together, helping humans! They made dates out of it; dropping generous care packages off at food banks, hosting small charity fundraising events at the bookshop, and Crowley even helped co-found a community garden. More than once, there was a small article in the local news, celebrating their altruism. Crowley would come into the shop triumphantly, holding the paper aloft, and loudly read out the text to anyone who would listen (usually some poor bystander, and always Aziraphale). The angel would then take the paper, carefully take a cutting, and add the article to their scrapbook. 

One day, just as he was about to shut up shop abruptly at 11 am, Crowley arrived. He had no newspapers with him, and looked positively furious. 

"My dear? Whatever's wrong?" Aziraphale asked, locking the door just as a customer tried to enter, and dropping the blinds down as if he hadn't even seen them. He may be an angel but, like Crowley, his habits had become less constrained of late. 

"Bloody bandits, that's what's wrong!" He seethed, storming into the back. 

Aziraphale followed closely. "Bandits?" He called.

"Yes. That fool in the deerstalker's been tearing up the community garden downtown," he snapped.

The angel laced his fingers together over his abdomen. "Who?"

"Oh, you know. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective or whatever he calls himself," he scoffed. He looked at Aziraphale quizzically. "You do know who I'm talking about, don't you?"

"I'm afraid not, dear," he said, settling down in the armchair while his boyfriend paced around him. 

"He runs about solving clever crimes and then his friend blogs about them," he summarised quickly. "A blog is a - "

"I know that, Crowley."

"Hm. Well," he said, almost impressed. Slowly but surely, Aziraphale was building a patchwork of knowledge about the modern world. "He appeared at the allotment and started ripping up the tomato plants. Janet - you remember Janet - called me, but by the time I got there he'd already buggered off. I swear if I'd gotten hold of him, I'd have broken his arms."

Aziraphale gave a placating smile, and said "I'm sure you would, dear," though he didn't believe it for a second. Crowley's arm-breaking days were long behind him, if he'd ever had any to start with. 

"That's not all!" He exclaimed. "After all that, he solved the crime, and the blog's already up. Look."

He held up his phone in outrage, flicking the screen to race through the block of text. "My tomato plants get a two-sentence mention, and he reckoned they were a waste of time. Waste of bloody time!" He continued. He continued to shout, this time directly at the phone, as if Mr Holmes could hear him. "They're only a waste now someone's gone and ripped them up, you smarmy git!"

Aziraphale sighed. He knew that Crowley took his gardening very seriously, and his good deeds were a sensitive issue, especially if anything went wrong. Hissy fits were common. Only one of two things would calm him down: time, or revenge. While Aziraphale didn't usually encourage the latter, an idea was beginning to form in his head.

"You say he solves crimes, dear?"

"Yeah. And?"

"Particularly proud of himself, is he?"

"Course, he's a right stuck-up prick," he replied, crossing his arms. 

"Well..." He said, adjusting his glasses slightly with a self-satisfied smile. "What if someone were to beat him at his own game? Steal his spotlight for a little while?"

Crowley paused. He began to smirk, and the smirk stretched into a grin. "Oh, angel," he purred, "I like the way you think."

They began to put their plan together quickly. Aziraphale had, at first, volunteered to write their blog, but quickly found that his own style of writing was a tad antique to ever catch on online. So, that fell to Crowley, who happily took the role. With a wry smile, he said that Aziraphale would be far better suited to the 'unfettered genius' part. In reality, since this was a revenge mission, he only had one thing in mind: the fact that nothing would please him more than to see the great Sherlock Holmes knocked down to size by his very own bookish angel boyfriend. 

When it came to actually solving crimes, they started small: stolen pets in the area, break-ins, a couple of assaults. The issue arrived when it came to getting in on police investigations. Well, actually, 'problem' is a human word. For supernatural beings, it was more like 'temporary inconvenience'. It only took a little hypnosis (and some mildly disapproving looks from Aziraphale) and they were in, soon being involved with plenty of Soho's tricker little crimes. Surprisingly, Aziraphale had taken to detective work like a duck to... Whatever it is ducks take to. His keen mind worked over each problem methodically, like a crossword puzzle, or a Rubik's cube. Throw in a little angel's grace, and you had a 100% success rate so far. 

It would have made for relatively dull reading, though, if Crowley didn't have a certain way of making just about anything funny. His quips, pop culture references and liberal use of footnotes for extra sarcasm had a good reception online. The blog was taking off nicely. The level of competence they each displayed was, frankly, startling.

Now all they needed was a foothold in Sherlock's home turf. This time, it was for Crowley to return to some old ways. 

First, a simple manipulation. One morning, he lingered outside a block of terraced houses, just before dawn. Number 7 was the place of residence of one Gregory Lestrade. Strictly speaking, Crowley ought not to have been privy to this information, but a little cajoling of some junior officers could get you all sorts of little snippets of knowledge. Leaning against a wall, he reached out with his mind, his eyes flickering shut behind his glasses. He found Lestrade's coffee machine. A couple of adjustments, and it was certain to spray coffee at whoever dared touch it. Then, he broke the washing machine. He also made damn certain that every shirt in the washing basket reeked, and sat creased beyond even the limits of a tired DI. 

Withdrawing back into his own body, he took a leaflet for a dry cleaner's from his pocket. With a quick miracle, he altered the address listed. He slipped it through the letterbox of No 7, and sauntered away just as he heard the loud swearing of a man who had been covered with coffee. 

Half an hour later in Soho, he was lounging across an armchair, his lanky limbs hanging limply as he drifted in and out of conciousness. The shop's bell sounded. Footsteps entered, clearly uncertain. Someone cleared their throat politely, and Crowley raised his head, his face impassive behind his sunglasses.

"Hm?" He grunted. 

"Uh, hi, sorry," the man said. He had a very obvious coffee stain down his front. "Is there a dry cleaners around here? I think there's been a mistake on this flier..."

"None 'round here, mate," he replied, sitting up. "Sorry. In a rush, are we?"

"Yeah, a bit. I'm a detective inspector with Scotland Yard, and I'm supposed to host a press conference in," he paused, looking at his watch, "an hour. God, this isn't going to look good..."

"I think there's a washing machine in the back," he said casually, making a vague gesture to the back room.

"Oh, is this your shop?" Lestrade asked.

"No, it belongs to my boyfriend. Gimme a sec," he replied. He stood up, leaning over the counter and raising his voice. "ANGEL! C'mere."

Aziraphale appeared after a couple of seconds. This whole exchange had been rehearsed (admittedly, drunk) a couple of times the previous night. "Yes, dear?"

"Would you mind putting in this guy's shirt for a quick wash?" He asked, gesturing at the detective inspector behind him, who gave a smile and an awkward wave. "He's got a press conference later, apparently."

"Oh! How exciting. Yes of course," he replied, gesturing for Lestrade to go into the back. "Right this way."

How exactly Lestrade had found himself shirtless in the back room of a Soho bookshop, he wasn't quite sure. It had seemed like such a normal morning, until everything in his house seemed suddenly intent that he wasn't going anywhere with a clean shirt. At least the bookkeeper - what was his name again? - had given him a jumper to put on in the meantime. 

"Uh, thanks for this," he said awkwardly. "I'm Greg Lestrade, by the way."

The portly bookseller's face lit up immediately. "Lestrade - as in - the one who works with Holmes and Watson?"

He slumped down slightly. "I'd say they work with me, actually, but yeah. That's me."

"Oh of course," he replied. "Crowley, dear, did you hear that?"

"I heard," came the muffled response from across the room. The demon, having played his part, was now face-down on the sofa, snoozing.

Lestrade lowered his voice slightly. "Uh... Is he hung over?" He asked, thinking of the dark glasses and apparent need for sleep.

"Hm? No, he's just like that," the other man replied. "Anyway, as I was saying, Mr Holmes and Dr Watson are big inspirations of ours. So much so, we've taken up the good fight as well."

"Sorry, what?" Lestrade said, frowning up at the odd man. He wasn't quite sure he'd heard that right.

"We - oh, perhaps it's better if you see for yourself," he said, picking up a tablet from the nearby table and opening the browser. Their blog was open already in the tab, having been set up in advance. 

Lestrade began to read while he waited. He found himself rather drawn in. It was similar to John's blog, but more upbeat, sarky, and modern. He found himself chuckling almost all the way through the first story, and was halfway through the second when there was a nudge at his shoulder. He looked up, and saw Mr Fell (whose name he had learnt from the blog) handing him back his shirt. He didn't think to question how it was miraculously dry. He was more struck by a second realisation; the stories he'd just read weren't fictional. They were real, and their starring protagonists were in the room with him. Jarring as it was, he couldn't help but smile.

"Thanks," he said, slipping out of the jumper and starting to button up the shirt. "You know, that blog's something else."

"Thank you, but it's Crowley who ought to take credit," he said, gesturing to where the demon was snoring soundly. "He writes it all. I just solve the crimes."

"You say that like it's nothing," he commented. He wasn't sure how much of the blog was true to life, and how much of it was the embellishment of a loving boyfriend, but if it was to be believed, then this man could well be just as clever as Sherlock. 

"I'm just doing my bit," he said humbly. "If you ever need a hand from me at Scotland Yard, I'd be happy to help. I realise you have Mr Holmes already, but I don't think it's any secret to anyone that he can be a tad... ah, selective, at times?"

"Yeah, he only takes cases that aren't boring," he scoffed, with the tone of a man who'd heard that excuse far too many times. 

"Well that's no excuse," Aziraphale tutted disapprovingly. "He may be brilliant, but his morals are lacking, I find. Not to be rude, of course."

"No, please, be as rude as you like. Sherlock is," he responded airily.

"Then it's a good thing that I'm not Sherlock, isn't it?" He replied warmly. Lestrade couldn't help but give a short half-chuckle.

"Sorry. I'm just so used to having a stuck-up genius around that I forgot there was another kind," he said.

"You're too kind, inspector," he replied, and glanced at the clock. "It looks like you're running short on time, I'm afraid."

Lestrade jumped, cursing, and then apologising. "Right, I'd best be off. Thanks for your help, Mr Fell - and I'll give you call next time I get a tricky case, yeah?"

"I look forward to it," he said, his sly tone lost on the inspector as he raced out the door, having still not realised that his shirt was now whiter than it had ever been, despite not having seen the inside of a washing machine at all that day.


	2. Move Over, Mr Holmes

Sherlock had not had a case in weeks. He was in a dangerous mood; that is to say, he was bored. He hadn't quite reached shooting-the-wall level bored, or even worse, heroin bored, but his mind was certainly starting to wander. John was at work, since he was now doing overtime to make sure they could cover rent. 

Mrs Hudson came in, as she was prone to doing, just to check up when things had gone suspiciously quiet. "Sherlock?" She called.

"In here!" He yelled. 

"I can see you, dear, I'm right behind you," she said patiently. 

He turned around from where he had been facing the window. "Right. I knew that."

"Bored, dear?"

"Obviously," he replied sulkily, throwing himself down into a chair and pulling his dressing gown tight around himself. "No one's doing anything interesting anymore. Even Lestrade doesn't have anything for me. He hasn't been by in months."

"He was here just last week for a cuppa," she pointed out. "Don't you remember?"

"Must've deleted it. Wasn't interesting."

She sighed, and began to gather up the mugs that were piling up around the flat. Sherlock's caffeine habit was unhealthy, but it wasn't a class A drug, so everyone had collectively agreed to just leave it be. "Maybe it's that new fellow, slowing things down for you," she called out from the kitchen.

"New fellow? What new fellow?" He echoed irritably.

"Oh haven't you heard?" She said, poking her head back into the living room. "There's another chap doing the same as you now. He has a blogger along with him, too. Just like you and John, they are."

Sherlock went blank. At least, he went blank on the surface. Internally, he was racing through data, tearing through his mind palace to find any mention of there being another consulting detective in London, or the world, or at all, ever. He came up with nothing. 

"What," he said flatly, coming to with Mrs Hudson waving her hands in front of his face. 

"I said, he's even working with Lestrade, just like you. I'm sure John told you, you know," she said, tutting and leaving the flat. "Listen, I have some spring cleaning to do. You just sit tight. I'm sure you'll have a case soon."

Immediately as she left, Sherlock hacked into John's computer (hack was too grand a term; he guessed his password) and began to search for this new competitor. Results began to appear in droves.

First, the blog. He skimmed it. The cases were dull, made palatable only by droll writing for wide appeal. Not as good as John's, a nasty, smug little voice in his head told him. He smirked. A second voice chimed in: Yeah, but it's just as popular. That one was less welcome, but nonetheless true; the AZ Fell & Cro. Blog had just as many hits as Watson's, with only just over half the number of cases. 

It also had a fan base. On Twitter, #antiholmes, #HolmesVsFell, #CrowleyVsWatson, #BlogBattle and #DetectiveDrama were all trending, to various degrees. He looked briefly into each.

Fell & Cro are cool but I'll always prefer the originals. Sorry guys! #HolmesVsFell #BlogBattle

So you're telling me there's now 2 sets of weird gay genius detectives & their boyfriends in London? I love this city #HolmesVsFell #DetectiveDrama

So I actually knew Fell before he became a detective (which was random but ok) He's the sweetest guy ever, so polite, would never hurt a fly. Holmes always came off so rude, good to see someone cutting him down to size. #antiholmes #HolmesVsFell

Ok so I love watson's blog but... dem sunglasses tho #CrowleyVsWatson

Does anyone know if Sherlock actually knows that Fell exists?? #HolmesVsFell

Story time: I met Fell & Cro in St James Park and they let me have a selfie w them and feed the ducks. Best day of my life, such nice guys... Move over, Sherlock, Fell's got u beat #antiholmes #HolmesVsFell #ducks

Who would win: ex-army jumper distinguished gay or sunglasses skinny jeans disaster gay? #CrowleyVsWatson

Does anyone know what time Fell actually opens his book shop? I get that he's busy with cases but I would love to have a look around #antiholmes #AZFell

Everyone's on here talking about how sweet Fell is but let's talk about Crowley. He's Fell's #1 fan and you can just TELL by how he writes the blog. How many boyfriends are this supportive? 13/10 couple. #goals #CrowleyVsWatson

Watson's blog is cool but Crowley's writing just kills me every time #CrowleyVsWatson #BlogBattle #HolmesVsFell

Does Fell have a first name or...? #antiholmes #DetectiveDrama #FellsFirstName 

Pretty sure the A in AZ Fell stands for Angel. Crowley seems to think so #DetectiveDrama #Fell&CroAreMarried #detectiveboyfriends

Fell & Cro handled my break-in as one of their first cases. I was nervous to use a consulting detective cause I'd heard bad things about Holmes but these two made me feel so safe and comfortable. Really proud to be part of their blog, love sharing the story with friends now I'm over the shock #HolmesVsFell #antiholmes 

Is it just me or does the DI look so much calmer now he doesn't use holmes anymore lol #HolmesVsFell 

Sherlock read the tweets until his eyes stung. He couldn't find any pictures of these men, or at least none that would load quickly enough. He would have kept going, if John hadn't have come home. He usually didn't notice his friend coming and going, but this had gone on for long enough. 

"John!" He barked, turning the laptop towards him. "Did you know about this?"

"What?" He said, then came closer. "Ah. Right. Yeah, I told you, but you mustn't have listened. Those two have been on the rise for weeks."

"It says here that Lestrade's been using them. Is that why he isn't giving me cases anymore?" He said, his voice consumed with the mania of an addict. "Because he's got some jumped-up half-wit to do it instead?"

"Now hang on, this Fell guy is supposed to be very clever," John protested. Sherlock scoffed. "Don't be like that, Sherlock. It was bound to happen eventually."

"What?"

"That someone would come along who's just as good as you," he replied, just to get on his nerves a bit. It worked, and Sherlock faced the back of the sofa and didn't speak for the rest of the night. 

Well... at least he wasn't smoking. 

The news broke the next afternoon, on the six o'clock news. Third body found in peculiar Thames drownings; case now being treated as a murder enquiry. Sherlock was buzzing. He was ready to pounce. His mental countdown and already begun, and he was just waiting to hear the tyres outside, and Lestrade's shoes coming up the stairs. Nothing. 

He began to get agitated. He shouted for John. "John! Have we got any missed calls?"

"Uh... No," he said, checking his phone. "Why?"

"We need a cab. Come on," he said, already halfway out the door. 

He didn't speak on the way there, no matter how much John tried to make conversation. He watched the streets of London go by. His mind processed everything. He couldn't stop it. He needed an outlet, and so help him God, if Lestrade had gone and replaced him...

He stepped out of the cab, ducking under the police tape. The Thames' distinctive scent hung heavy at the banks. He raised his voice until a familiar face turned to look. "Lestrade!" He said. "Anything interesting?"

"Sherlock," he said, the look on his face surprised, and almost embarrassed. "What are you doing here? I didn't call you."

"Oh that's all right. Thought I'd be proactive for once," he said, feigning politesse. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and smiled over his upturned collar. 

"I - It's just that I've already called - " he stammered, only to be cut off by the guttural roar of an engine. Everyone at the scene turned at the noise.

A classic Bentley scattered gravel as it rolled to a halt, having been breaking the speed limit all the way here. It was in good condition, for a car of its age. It looked new. The doors popped open, and the first face out into the fresh air was sharp and pale, with dark red hair and a pair of round sunglasses. That must be Crowley, thought Sherlock knowingly. A shorter man appeared on the other side. He was plump, with white-blond hair, and antiquated clothes. They looked 19th century, and if Sherlock hadn't known any better, he'd have said they were genuine period pieces. This is the famed AZ Fell, his train of thought continued. The two men met, linking arms in front of the bonnet of the car and entering the crime scene. Sherlock imposed himself directly in their path.

"Hello," he said, stopping them in their tracks. He was mainly concerned with Fell; John stood opposite Crowley. They proffered one another a silent greeting: John smiled awkwardly, and Crowley merely acknowledged him with an impassive nod. In the background, one of the forensics team snapped a photo of the standoff. 

"Mr Holmes," Fell said, a bright smile on his face. He held out his hand. "What a pleasure to finally meet."

"Hm. We'll see," he replied, shaking his hand. The forensics guy snapped another photo. 

He glanced at Crowley. His eyes flicked over him. The demon stared back, his expression difficult even for the great detective to discern behind his glasses. "Your sunglasses. Cosmetic?" He asked.

There was a long pause. "'Scuse me?" He drawled, disinterested and surly. 

"They're almost completely black, with glass in the side, completely unnecessary on a day like this," he said, gesturing upward to the darkening grey sky, threatening rain very soon. "Clearly trying to hide something, probably an unseemly medical condition in or around the eye. Could be a vision problem, but you're obviously well enough to drive, so probably not. So, I ask again: cosmetic?"

Crowley didn't respond. His face gave nothing away. Eventually, he turned back to Fell, and said "Lestrade called us for a reason, angel," he said. 

He nodded, patting his arm gently. "Yes, of course, dear," he replied. "Come along."

As they stepped around their rivals, heading toward the body, Watson turned to Holmes. "Really?" 

"What?"

"He's clearly self-conscious about his eyes, and that's the first thing you bring up," he said impatiently. 

"What, not good?"

"No, Sherlock. Not good," he said, shaking his head and hurrying after them. He hardly noticed when Sherlock didn't follow him. 

Crowley stood back while his boyfriend crouched beside the body, muttering to himself. The demon took in everything, thinking about how he'd turn it all into writing later. He had to admit, it was quite fun. He was mildly surprised when someone appeared at his shoulder. He turned to see the flustered face of Sherlock's sidekick.

"Dr Watson," he acknowledged coolly, keeping his eyes on Aziraphale. 

"Hi. Sorry about Sherlock, he's... His social skills aren't great," he said. 

"I've worked with worse," he replied, almost shuddering to think back to his time with Hell. Once, he'd been forced to work side-by-side with Hastur. That had been a rough week. 

"What do you do, for a living?" He asked curiously. "I know Fell has his shop, but I haven't seen anything about you."

"I've dabbled in all sorts. I take what I can get," he said vaguely, finally glancing across at the doctor, and making a vague gesture towards Aziraphale. "These days, I mostly just help him."

"Is he as difficult to live with as Sherlock, do you think?" He asked humorously.

"Oh, maybe. The whole flat's packed out with books, he can never get rid of anything," Crowley said, rolling his eyes. "And let me tell you, Hell hath no fury like my boyfriend when he's hungry. Trust me, I'd know." 

The real joke there was somewhat lost on Watson, but he laughed anyway. "Sounds like you've got your work cut out," he said. "You know, if you two fancy a pint, I know a good pub not far from here. We could pop in after this, if you like."

"I'd be up for that," he said, just as Aziraphale had his eureka moment.

Meanwhile, Sherlock had been prowling the crime scene, looking for information. He had come here for a reason, and it wasn't the case. He wanted to know who the hell Fell & Cro thought they were. Something deep inside him - Watson would call it jealousy, but what would he know? - made him want to punch Fell's stupid, polite face. Lestrade had only entertained his questions for a few seconds before dismissing him.

"Look, Sherlock, I'm sorry, but Mr Fell is just as good as you while he's working a case, and he doesn't rub half the team up the wrong way while he's doing it," he said impatiently. "He's not as picky, either."

With that, he'd walked away, joining Crowley and Watson beside the body. Sherlock turned away, muttering something that sounded like 'traitors' (but he'd deny it if you asked). Everyone at the scene looked busy. Well, apart from that one new guy who thought he was being inconspicuous about taking pictures of the rival detective teams finally meeting, but something told Sherlock that he wouldn't be interested in what he had to say. He sighed. Only two more left...

He sauntered over to Anderson and Donovan, smiling sourly. They spotted him immediately, taking up their defensive postures. "Well if it isn't the original freak," Donovan said. "Didn't think I'd see you around here again, now we've got a new one."

"Oh I don't know, Donovan. Can't be that good, can he?" He replied.

"He is, actually," Anderson cut in. "And he doesn't stick his nose where it doesn't belong."

"Or make the rest of us look bad," Donovan continued. "If I had to choose one freak or another, I'd pick him."

"Yes, well, we're all aware of how low your standards are for men, Donovan," Sherlock couldn't help but say. He ignored her harsh glare. "Have you called him a freak to his face yet?"

She shuffled her feet, glancing over at the body. Her eyes weren't on Fell. "No."

He didn't need to check who she was looking at. "Frightened of Crowley, are we?" He asked slyly. 

"Well, he doesn't exactly look trustworthy, does he?" Anderson scoffed. "Can never tell what he's thinking behind those glasses. Well, not unless he's looking at Fell, then it's pretty obvious he's mentally undressing him."

Sherlock ignored the crude comment. Anderson was not an especially romantic man, and no doubt he was projecting his own habits a bit there. "Right. Well, you've both been useless," he grumbled, dropping any pretence of amicability and stalking off. 

He arrived at the group of men near the corpse. "John, come on. We're going home," he said. 

John looked mildly surprised that he hadn't been left behind already. "Actually, Sherlock... me, Lestrade, Fell and Crowley were all about to go for a pint," he said sheepishly.

"What?" He said, a trifle sharply.

"You're welcome to join us, Mr Holmes," Aziraphale put in, smiling angelicly at him. 

"No. It's fine," he said, backing up. "You have fun, then."

With his coat flapping behind him, and the first few spots of evening rain starting to fall, he stepped onto the streets of London to hail a cab. The ride back to Baker St was strangely quiet, without John, and only the crackling radio in the background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had way too much fun with those tweets


	3. Twitterpocalypse

IT FINALLY HAPPENED - Fell & Holmes met in person & are now working side by side on the Thames Drownings with Scotland Yard. Click here for the full story #HolmesVsFell #CrowleyVsWatson #Meetingoftheminds 

[images attached: Aziraphale and Crowley standing opposite Holmes and Watson beside the Thames; Aziraphale and Sherlock's handshake; Crowley and Watson stood beside one another at the crime scene]

Oh my godddddd I've been waiting for this for months #DetectiveDrama

Gonna be so interesting to see how their blogs cover the story differently #BlogBattle #CrowleyVsWatson

Wow is it just me, or does Sherlock look super jealous? Chill out dude, two heads are better than one #DetectiveDrama 

Fell looks the nerdiest nerd ever to nerd, and Crowley is the gothiest goth ever to goth. What a power couple #antiholmes #Fell&CroAreMarried

Sherlock's coat is iconic but Fell & Cro's commitment to aesthetic is incredible. I mean, a bow tie? 24/7 sunglasses? Classic car? You can't compete with that #HolmesVsFell #CrowleyVsWatson #aesthetic 

THE SALT #HolmesVsFell

Are they working together or competing to solve it faster? Cause I feel like Fell thinks one thing and Sherlock thinks something else... #HolmesVsFell #DetectiveDrama 

When did the #antiholmes tag start? Can't believe I missed it. It's so true though, Fell is so wholesome. Crowley kinda scares me though... #antiwatson anyone?

The photos look fake... I don't think you'd get both teams on one crime scene without them killing each other for the #DetectiveDrama 

Holy crap I saw Fell & Cro on a pub crawl in Soho with Watson and Lestrade last night... True story, they were all three sheets to the wind. Watson got a piggyback from Fell. Crowley was cursing at security cameras. Lestrade was just happy to be there I think. Funniest thing I've ever seen. #antiholmes #antiwatson 

Well known Soho fact: Fell & Cro drink like the world is ending. You can hear them after hours in the bookshop. No idea how their livers haven't dissolved yet. #Fell&Cro #antiholmes 

I've been itching to tell this story for weeks and this thread seems like a good place... me and a couple mates were out in Soho last month and we heard a car alarm go off. No biggie we thought but then we heard this guy yelling, and some chav ran right past us like the devil was after him. Then Crowley appears out of nowhere and fuckin tackles him. I have literally never seen a human run that fast. Poor car thief didn't stand a chance #RIP #DetectiveDrama #CrowleyVsWatson

The difference between these guys is so jarring. Who knew that bloggers and detectives came in so many varieties?? #antiholmes #antiwatson 

Holy shit, first Fell steals Sherlock's job and now he nicks his friends... savage #HolmesVsFell #DetectiveDrama #foreveralone 

Sherlock read the tweets after the photographs of him and Fell were posted. The Thames drownings remained unsolved. He cursed himself for not taking note of the crime scene. If he had, he could be working right now, ready to upstage his new rival. He hoped John - who had stumbled in at 2 am - had taken some notes, or he'd have to ask someone. He'd like to avoid that humiliation, if possible. 

His research on Fell & Cro had been fruitless. The bookshop - AZ Fell & Co. - had no website, and only short joke entry on Wikipedia from a disgruntled customer. Fell himself had never appeared in the press, except in the last year, during which time he and his boyfriend had been popping up all over London doing good deeds. Crowley was a similar story. His car appeared a few times on a few vintage car enthusiasts' message boards, and he had a few social media accounts, mostly consisting of gardening-related content. Neither of them had any records in the public domain, of any kind. 

He sat back, thinking very deeply for a long time. Or, maybe it had been a long time. Either way, it was John that finally shook him from his stupor, stumbling into the kitchen and reeking from the night before.

"Hung over, are we?" He said dryly, eying up his blogger. He grunted in response.

"I hear Mr Fell and his partner are quite the drinkers," he continued airily. 

"They're monsters, Sherlock," John groaned quietly, his hand over his eyes. "I've never seen anything like it. They're insane."

Sherlock hummed thoughtfully. "Interesting."

"Wha..?" The doctor muttered, making himself a coffee and rooting through the medical cupboard, which was always a minefield in 221B, but he was willing to take the risk. 

"I said, interesting. I saw nothing on them that would indicate alcoholism," he said, thrumming his fingers against the chair arm. "But if they aren't alcoholics, how could they drink like, as you so eloquently put it, monsters?"

"Oh. So you have been deducing them, then," he said, taking an aspirin and sidling into the room with a coffee in hand. 

"Oh, yes. They're a fascinating pair. Did you notice Fell's hands?"

"What about them?" He said, sitting opposite Sherlock.

"Very well manicured, but he also has calluses. He must have done physical work at some point in his life, probably more than a few years ago given his physique, but not anymore," he said. "Then take his glasses. He wears them sporadically, given the fact that I've seen various pictures of him in public and he has no consistent pattern. So, they're not prescription, but they're not exactly fashionable, either. But that's odd. He wears antique replicas of 19th century clothes, good ones too, so he clearly looks after his appearance. He's going for a specific look, possibly an eccentric one, and he's very committed. Misinformed on fashion, perhaps, but committed. So why the glasses?"

"Sherlock, I don't think - "

"And what about his boyfriend? There's a man who wants to keep up to date. Latest phone, don't know if you saw it, statement sunglasses, designer clothing," he said, his voice speeding up as he caught his rhythm. "Add in the facial tattoo and the obviously dyed red hair, and he's blatantly a man still clinging to his youth. Someone like that, pairing up with a frumpy bookseller? Bit odd, don't you think?"

John closed his eyes, sighing. "No, Sherlock, it's not. They're a very nice couple. Sometimes opposites attract."

"No, that's rubbish. Statistically, people are most likely to seek out personalities and appearances similar to their own. Opposites don't attract," he said sharply, clasping his hands tightly together until the ends of his fingers turned white. "But here we have a committed relationship between two men who couldn't be more different on the surface. It's not an overtly sexual relationship, clearly, so what else connects them? Work history? Upbringing? Religious beliefs? Though probably not that last one. If Fell is supposedly a genius too, then he won't have bought into all that religion rubbish."

"That's very judgemental," muttered John, sipping his coffee. He knew better than to argue the point too fiercely. "And what does it matter, anyway? We could probably use the help."

He was about to bite back, but stopped. "Hm. Maybe you're right," he said, standing up abruptly. "Come on. We're going."

"Wh - wha?" John mumbled, downing his coffee and snatching his coat. "Where?"

A short cab ride later, they arrived in Soho. John squinted, shielding his eyes from the sunlight. For some reason, today of all days, London had decided to have a sunny day. He trailed after Sherlock, his head throbbing.

"Sherlock, we can't go calling round the shop now," he protested. "They drank twice the amount I did last night. If I'm hungover, what will they be like?"

The bell over the door tinkled. The noise made him cringe. He was vaguely surprised that AZ Fell & Co's was open, but he guessed that Fell must have employees to run the place while he was indisposed. Then, he saw the almost luminous white figure behind the counter. 

Fell stood, closely examining a piece of parchment on the table. It was a small print, clearly very old. He was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and didn't look like he had a drop of alcohol in his system. He glanced up at the sound of customers, and smiled at the two of them.

"Hello there, gentlemen," he said, then dropped his voice quieter as he spotted John. "Ah, doctor Watson... A tad hung over?"

"Yeah... You aren't?" He said in disbelief, rubbing the back of his head. 

"No, not at all," he replied. "I have a terrific hangover cure, if you'd like to try it."

"Please," he said desperately.

"Come along, then," he said. "My back room is free."

Sherlock was intruiged that Fell hadn't thought twice about abandoning his shop front. He didn't comment, curious to see if he'd remember later. Had Sherlock taken a glance over his shoulder, however, he'd have noticed that the sign at the door now miraculously read closed. 

The back room was clearly the mainly used living space. The seats of all the chairs were well worn, especially the armchair and reading desk. Books were stacked up beside the sofa, next to what Sherlock assumed was Fell's usual spot. Crowley didn't seem like the reading type. The remnants of breakfast lay on the table; one mug, one small plate, one set of cutlery. He glanced at Fell's back, scrutinising him for any signs of tension.

"Is Crowley not in?" He asked casually, helping himself to a seat. John sat beside him.

"Hm? Oh, uh... No. Well - no, yes, he's out," he replied awkwardly, giving an awkward smile. "I'll fetch that cure for you, doctor Watson."

"Just John, thanks," he replied.

Fell bustled out of the room. Rattling sounds could be heard from the kitchen. Sherlock leaned closer to John. "Where did Crowley go last night?" He asked.

"Uh... With Fell, probably. I don't know. I split off first," he replied, rubbing his temples. "Why?"

"Doesn't look like he came home last night," he said, gesturing around. "His car's outside, but he was drunk, so he wouldn't have used it. There's only one breakfast plate on the table from this morning, and Fell was evasive when I asked. Maybe this relationship isn't as sound as it appears."

"Stop gossiping, Sherlock, it's not polite," he said irritably.

"Not gossip. It's investigating," he replied. He stood up, and called into the kitchen "Could you fix me a cuppa, please, Fell? I'm parched."

"Yes of course, dear boy," he called back. There was a click as the kettle went on. 

"There. That should buy us a bit more time," he muttered under his breath, and began to scan the bookshelves.

"Sh - Sherlock? What are you doing?"

"I just told you. I'm investigating," he said, moving on from the bookshelves to the drawers on Fell's desk. 

"You can't just - !" John hissed, halfway out of his seat and glancing nervously at the door, ready for Fell to reappear at any moment. 

"Oh, shut it. If you're not going to be useful, just sit down," he snapped, throwing the contents of the drawer back and pushing it closed. John sighed, exasperated, and buried his head in his hands. 

He rifled through all the drawers, finding nothing of interest. It was full of buttons, used pens, bits of string and old records of stock takes. It was normal, blindingly normal. He kept a careful ear out for the sound of footsteps approaching from the kitchen. He went to the stairs, where clutter had begun to pile up. He glanced underneath a stack of magazines, muttering under his breath. He glanced up, and did a double take. Beneath the open spiral staircase to the next floor, tucked just under the first few steps, was a large wicker basket. It looked like a washing basket, but if that's all it was, why put it there? Why hide it behind a pile of papers? Why was it covered with a blanket? He sniffed the air. It didn't smell like dirty laundry. The thrill a clue buzzed in the pit of his stomach as he snatched the blanket from the basket.

Furious hissing filled the room. Sherlock leapt back with a shout. A flash of red and black, lamplight on scales; an enormous serpent reared up from the basket, baring its fangs and wound up to strike. 

"BLOODY HELL!" He cried out, falling over his own feet and landing on his back in a spluttering tangle of limbs. John was by his side immediately. Just as the doctor pulled him sharply back to his feet and away from the snake, Fell burst back into the room. 

"Whatever is going on?" He asked, his blue eyes wide. He then noticed the snake, and all the tension dropped out of him. He planted his hands on his hips, after the manner of an exasperated parent. "Oh, there you are, you silly serpent, you!"

"Wh - you - you mean to tell me you lost this - this monster and didn't think to mention it?" Sherlock panted, thrown off big style. 

"I would hardly say lost," Fell said, rolling his eyes. "I knew he was somewhere around here, I just wasn't sure where. He bedded himself down in the quietest spot last night, it seems."

"Is - is he venemous?" John asked, eying the giant snake nervously. 

"Oh, yes, very," he replied airily. Watson gawked. Fell beckoned the animal over, as if it could understand. "Come here, dear."

"I don't think - " Sherlock began condescendingly, but stopped himself in amazement as the snake answered the call, slithering out of its basket and up onto Fell's shoulders. Or, most of him; much of its body, even when it coiled around him, hung down onto the floor. The serpent must have been more than ten feet long, and very heavy, but the bookkeeper supported the weight like nothing.

Before the other two could properly comprehend what had happened, Aziraphale fetched the drinks he'd prepared, and laid them out. He needed to smooth things over, and quickly, after Crowley's little outburst. He was always a tad more aggressive in his serpentine form, but privately the angel suspected that was only because it was harder to hold him accountable for it. He jabbered on about anything and nothing, performing a quick miracle to banish Watson's hangover after he downed half the concoction he'd been given. 

"Wow. This is great, what's the recipe?" He asked, no doubt noticing the immediate difference.

"Milk, honey, a touch of lavender, and... Well, a secret ingredient," he said, giving him a sly smile and sipping his cocoa. Sherlock immediately snatched the drink from his friend, sniffing it deeply. He took a small mouthful, swilling it around his palette before swallowing.

"Rubbish. There's nothing else in that drink," he said, and added to John: "It's just a placebo, telling you there's an extra secret."

Irked, Aziraphale took a slow sip from his mug. "That's what you think," he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for them to hear. He felt Crowley tighten his coils around his arm appreciatively, and he knew that if he'd been human-shaped just then, he'd have laughed. 

Aziraphale straightened himself out again, sitting back in his chair. "So," he said amicably, stroking Crowley's head. "I suppose you'd like to compare notes on the Thames case."

"Hm. That would be... Useful," Sherlock said, looking intently at the snake. "Sorry, what species is he?"

"Oh. I... I'm not actually sure," he admitted sheepishly. He had no idea if Crowley actually turned into a particular type of snake, or if it was just a demonic approximation of one. 

"You don't know," he said, a hint of smugness in his voice. "It looks like an Australian black red-bellied snake, but they grow to an average of four feet. Yours appears to be more than double that, and built more like a constrictor than a venemous snake."

"That sounds right. He's just an exception, is all," he said, eager to move on.

"Where'd you get him?" John asked idly, a little curious himself now he was a safe distance. Crowley looked at the doctor with piercing yellow eyes, flicking out his tongue.

"Uh - I - rescued him," Aziraphale stammered, moving his mug around from hand to hand. "I've done a fair amount of travelling, you see... He slithered right up to me on a wall in - in - '04."

Aziraphale had intended to give the name of a location, but knew he couldn't very well say 'Eden', but equally couldn't quite bring himself to lie about how he and Crowley had met. So, he opted for a day. To say '04 to a human is usually to mean 2004, but as the reader must know, our angel is here referring to 4004 BC, the year of the world's creation. Sherlock narrowed his eyes at him, suspecting that the whole story was blatantly untrue when it was, in fact, merely sufficiently vague to be misleading. Aziraphale put his mug down and folded his hands in his lap to stop his fiddling.

"Now, the case, please," he said imploringly. "You first, Mr Holmes, you've been at this longer than me."

Sherlock twitched. "Can't," he said tautly, reclining and folding his arms. "I don't have anything."

"Nothing at all?"

"No."

"My dear boy, whatever were you playing at?" He chortled, running his fingers absent-mindedly over Crowley's scales as he coiled up in a large mound of reptile in his lap. "Luckily, I had my eyes peeled."

"Good. Good, that's very useful, thank you," John said, smiling to try to diffuse the tension. 

"You're very welcome, doctor Watson," he said. "Now, what was immediately obvious was that this was indeed a drowning. Plenty of river water in the lungs and so forth. Toxicology on the previous bodies found no small amounts of incapacitating drugs in their systems, which at first suggested suicide, if not for some minor details. You are familiar with the previous bodies, I trust, Mr Holmes?"

He set his jaw. "Remind me." That is to say, no. 

With a sigh, the angel launched himself back into the tale. "Each of them had things that would have suggested they planned on continuing to live. Return train tickets, for one. Another had plans penned into their diary for the next day, when I examined her flat," he explained through thinly veiled impatience. "The body discovered yesterday was even more interesting. We can assume she too was drugged, being that these deaths seem to be murders, but she had on her person a business card to a particular establishment in central London. A bar, that is. I thought it would be a good place to start investigating today."

"Was she definitely not a suicide?" Sherlock asked. He hated having to ask. It burnt at the edges of his mind; it felt wrong.

"Oh, I'm certain," he replied, finishing off his drink. There was a long moment when Sherlock irritably awaited an explanation. "Young ladies thinking of committing suicide do not generally leave notes in their pocket claiming that they have instead been kidnapped, and fear death."

Sherlock was struck dumb. Damn! He knew he ought to have muscled in on the investigation earlier, he knew it. It took a moment to realise that Aziraphale was offering him a sheet of paper, on which was printed a photograph of the note. It had bled terribly from its time in the river, but it was still legible. His eyes skimmed it quickly.

Pl e se HELP kidn aped HELP find bou ncer 

"The writing's shaky, disjointed. Written in a moving vehicle, probably while drugged, given the spelling errors," Sherlock analysed quickly. "She may have planned to drop the note while being moved from the vehicle. Probably a van, given that she was able to write it and keep it on her person without her captor noticing."

"I had thought so, yes," Aziraphale said, nodding. "I haven't been to her flat yet. We might do well to split up, one of us at the bar, and the other at her home."

"Yes. Me and John will take the bar."

"Actually, I had planned to go there," he said. "Crowley knows the owner. He owes him a favour, and I'm confident he'd be willing to give us access to anything we may need."

"Then I'll go with Crowley," he said. "You can take John to the victim's flat, and our bloggers can compare notes afterwards. Yes?"

Aziraphale stared blankly. "I - I would need to ask Crowley first," he said, standing up, gathering the serpent into his arms. "Let me fetch him."

"I thought you said he was out," John said, frowning as the angel made for the stairs.

"I meant unconcious!" He called down defensively, already disappearing into the floor above.


	4. Crowley Vs Watson

Crowley had sauntered down the stairs first. He yawned wide, running a hand through his hair. Fell followed closely behind, the snake he had carried with him nowhere to be seen. 

"Apparently I'm going with you," Crowley said, looking at Sherlock. He was wearing his sunglasses already, despite having supposedly just woke up. 

"That's right. The bar," he said, standing up.

"Great. Let's move," he said, making his way through the shop front with his usual swinging gait. 

Mildly surprised, Sherlock got to his feet. Finally, someone with a sense of urgency, he thought to himself. He found Fell to be achingly slow; his speech, his movements, his whole manner. At that thought, he almost groaned as he remembered that Crowley's car was a classic Bentley. It would barely manage 40 mph, he was certain. 

"We should get a cab," he called, just as the demon opened the driver side door. "It'll be faster."

"I can guarantee you it won't," he replied with an unusual sense of certainty, and got in. Sherlock hesitated for a moment, glancing longingly at a passing cab, before getting in the passenger's side.

The engine grunted into life. The cassette player began to play Queen's It's A Kind Of Magic. Crowley glared at it, cursing under his breath. "What? Has it been a fortnight already?" He muttered to himself, and seemed to consider ejecting the tape for a moment before shaking his head and letting it play. 

They pulled out into the road. Sherlock tapped his foot rapidly, trying to settle in for a frustratingly slow journey. What he hadn't accounted for is that Aziraphale had forced Crowley to swear that he wouldn't break any traffic laws within five hundred metres of the book shop. That radius was ingrained into the demon's brain, and he knew exactly when he had crossed his boundary into driving freedom. And once he had...

Sherlock let out a strangled cry, thrown back into his seat. The Bentley roared, louder than it had any right to be, as it tore down the road. The first few notes of Another One Bites The Dust began to play. Crowley dodged with practised ease in-between other cars, around lampposts and so close to pedestrians that even Sherlock felt a bit sick. He grasped the seat desperately. His eyes flicked over to the speedometer. 

"Ninety miles an hour?" He exclaimed.

"Oh, don't you start. I get enough stick for this from Captain Slow back at home," he sniped back. He swerved to avoid a duck in the road, throwing Sherlock against the door. "It's fine. Faster than a cabbie."

He had to concede defeat on that fact. Crowley must have altered the Bentley somehow... A new engine, minimum, to make it do this. It had done 30 to 90 in seconds. As for the flawless handling, pillow-soft suspension, and the fact the dial behind the wheel reckoned that the car was running on no fuel whatsoever, well... It was baffling. Sherlock decided that he needed to reevaluate his knowledge on cars. 

Meanwhile, Aziraphale and John had just got on the bus, and were on their way in the opposite direction. John felt a little awkward. Although he'd shared a few words with the man at the pub, he had mostly talked with Lestrade the night before. Group conversation had been lively and very funny, but spearheaded by Crowley's ridiculous tales. He and the inspector both agreed it was time to leave at ten to two in the morning, around the time when Crowley began kissing Fell's neck at the bar. Not very subtly, either. He wasn't sure if Fell remembered that at all, and felt too embarrassed to ask. 

"Um," he began, drawing the detective's attention. "Sorry, I've just thought... I don't know your name. Your first name, I mean."

He just smiled politely in return. "That doesn't matter, does it? Fell is as good a name as one could wish for," he said evasively, and folded his hands in his lap. Now and then he had told curious humans that his name was Angel, but it made his skin crawl when they addressed him as such. It felt so wrong, being called Angel by a voice that wasn't Crowley's, even hundreds of years ago. Now, he avoided the topic of first names altogether, if he could. 

"Yeah, yes, it is, I suppose," he said, clearly slightly taken aback that he had refused to answer. He tapped his hands on his knees. "What about your middle name? Can't be many names starting with a Z."

Aziraphale supposed it would be rude to refuse a second time. "It's Zira," he said. Dividing his name up had seemed like a good idea when he had the book shop sign painted, but by this logic, his name was A Zira Fell. He didn't have a first name, as a human, unless the letter A counted. 

"Zira... That's an interesting one. What language is it from?" He asked. He tried to deduce something about where Fell might be from, if he wasn't British. But... His skin was white, his hair was a beautifully rare shade of blond, and his face, with all its soft edges and laugh lines, spoke only of kindness and friendliness. It was the kind of face that Watson had instantly taken a liking to. 

"I'm not certain," he replied. He checked the time. 

"Never asked your parents?" He guessed, watching out for their stop. 

"I don't have any."

"What?" John said, a tad quickly and more than a little shocked. 

"I said, I don't have any parents. I never have," Aziraphale reiterated. He looked away, pressing his lips into a thin line. He had always envied the relationship humans had with their parents. It seemed such a pure kind of love, the like of which he couldn't understand from the perspective of a child. He had a creator, not a mother, and a boss, not a father. 

"Oh god, I'm so sorry. I would never have said, if..." he began, flailing for words.

"Quite all right, doctor Watson," he said, patting his arm and getting to his feet. "This is our stop."

Crowley's friend, the bar owner, was ready to meet them in the main sitting area. The stools hadn't yet been taken down for service. It was lit by buzzing neon bars over head, and the paltry rays of sunlight filtering in from the small windows. 

"Anthony," the man said, jumping to his feet. He shook both their hands vigorously. "And Mr Holmes, too. I was expecting Fell, instead. You haven't broken things off, have you, Anthony? Cause I swear to god, if you have, I'll smash a bottle over your head."

"No, we're still together, still happy," he said, smirking and shaking his head. "Holmes, this is Ben."

"Ah good. We had bets on, you know, about when you two would get on with it and ask each other out. You won me a pretty penny or two, doing it during the summer," he said smugly. He turned conspiratorially to Sherlock. "This guy chased that bookkeeper for years, the stubborn bastard. They were the talk of Soho, back when I lived down that way."

"Still are," Crowley grumbled. 

"Same bunch, is it? Marie and her kids, and the guy pedalling DVDs across the road?" The barkeep guessed, and Crowley nodded along. "What about homophobic old Kenny? He still alive?"

"Unfortunately," said the demon sourly. 

"Prick. Maybe you ought to propose, that might finish him off," he said snidely. Crowley huffed and punched his arm. 

"Hate to interrupt," Sherlock said, loving to interrupt, "but we have a murder enquiry to handle."

"Right. Here's the girl," Crowley said, holding out his phone, with a picture of the victim. "Tell me what you know. All of it."

Ben frowned at the picture. "Yeah, she was a regular in here. I knew her," he said. "Daisy, I think. Daisy Potsdam."

"That's the one. Do you remember seeing her here recently?"

"Man, I've been out of town for a while. Couldn't tell ya. I left the head bouncer in charge," he said, scratching his arm.

Sherlock and Crowley shared a sideways glance. "What's his name?" The former asked.

"George Puce," he said. "Why? He in trouble?"

"Not if he's innocent," he replied. "We need your security tapes, and a physical description. We should be able to have this wrapped up before tonight."

Aziraphale and John let themselves into Daisy's flat. It was tiny, little more than a kitchen-living room combo, bedroom and minute bathroom. There was damp on the walls. Moths had eaten the curtains, and the bed frame was rusted and rickety. The angel shook his head, tutting. "This isn't right," he mumbled. 

"What? You see something?" 

"No, I'm just very sad for this young girl," he replied, staring around at the pitiful living space. "She deserved better."

John stared, first in shock, and then admiringly as Aziraphale began to search the room. He handled everything with care, like a precious artefact, or like one of his treasured books. Everywhere he looked, he seemed to mourn the loss of a woman he hadn't known. His respect for the dead was almost moving in itself. There was a flicker of warmth in his chest, which he quickly snuffed out. 

A quick aside, on the nature and origin of that 'flicker of warmth'; John Watson believed himself to be attracted to women only. He was, however, aware that he also, now and again, felt something of that sort towards men. He wasn't sure how to handle that. It scared him, more than Afghanistan ever had, so he kept on insisting he was straight and hoping that he could ignore whatever the other thing was... Especially when it concerned a man who was most definitely taken, and by one of Hell's own, no less (not that he knew that last part).

Quite without his say-so, his mind flicked back to the bookshop. Sherlock had thought that Crowley and Fell's relationship might be on the rocks. He shook his head, banishing the thoughts. No. He wouldn't be that guy. I'm not a home wrecker, he thought fiercely to himself. What am I saying? I'm not even gay!

"Doctor Watson?" Aziraphale's voice called, snapping him out of it. "Are you listening?"

"Oh - uh - sorry, no," he said, flushing red. He burned with shame. "What were you saying?"

Fell gave him an odd look, but continued. "I was just saying, I found her diary, and she had a haircut pencilled in for today, and an appointment with the doctor on Friday. Just more evidence that it wasn't a suicide, as I thought."

John nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Yep?" He croaked. He fiercely ignored the way the sunlight made Fell's pale hair glow, like a halo at his back. He looked angelic. 

Fell - who was indeed about as angelic as they get, if you discounted his many sins and disobediences - placed the small day planner back on the table where he'd found it. He sighed. It was a calm and gentle sound. 

"Are you at all religious, Doctor Watson?" He asked quietly.

"No. Sorry, I'm - well, I was raised Catholic, but I'm not anymore," he said, unsure exactly of why he'd apologised. He cleared his throat softly, crossing his arms and trying not to look too long in Fell's direction. He was ready for Fell to begin ridiculing him; he'd probably deduced his catholic childhood somehow. Sherlock had already predicted that he wouldn't have any time for faith either.

"Hm," he said, curling one hand into a fist and clasping the other over it, beside his heart. John noticed the calluses on those manicured hands, just as Sherlock had said. "Perhaps it would be insensitive of me, then, if..."

"What?" John asked when he trailed off, daring to meet his eyes.

"If I were to say a quick prayer, in Daisy's honour," he said. His ethereal blue eyes stared at Watson imploringly.

"You're religious?"

"Not quite religious, I wouldn't say, but I certainly have faith," he said, choosing his words very carefully. "I have faith in God, and in her alone. I trust no intermediaries... Not anymore."

"Her?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You said her," he repeated, tilting his head slightly. "When you talked about God. Do you think - uh, believe, sorry - that God's female?"

"I don't think so, dear boy, I know so," he replied with surprising certainty. "Though gender hardly exists for her, of course, I know she prefers her femininity."

"That's - " he began, but couldn't find the words. Fell had turned his perspective on genius on its head, again. He felt himself respecting his belief, almost instinctively, and his rock-solid conviction. "You know what, I respect that. I'd be happy for you to say a few words, for - for Daisy."

He hesitated as he said the dead woman's name. Usually, he and Sherlock would distance themselves from the victims. They would use an epithet like 'the lady in pink', or refer to them by their surname, or just as 'the victim'. He hadn't realised until now how dehumanising that had been. He was a doctor, for god's sake. Empathy should have been his first concern.

He watched as Fell turned, facing a photograph of Daisy and her family. It was large and framed professionally, probably a gift. The detective bowed his head, and lay his fingers gently on the frame. He began to speak.

"Daisy, my dear girl, I never knew you," he said, so softly that John had to strain his ears to hear. "But I know how loved you were. I can feel it in this room, in this photograph. Your life was vibrant and there was not a moment wasted, not even when you suffered, not even as it was stolen from you. Every second you were with us on this earth, you were part of us, of everyone. Without you here, we will mourn, but we will live every moment as you did, one with each other. May those you love join you one day, in Heaven's light. Amen."

Aziraphale opened his eyes and took a deep breath. He felt the love on this photo, scattered across its surface like a sheen of oil. It was beautiful. He knew that Daisy had heard him; he may not be welcome in Heaven, but Gabriel could not sever his connection with it, or the souls therein. Only the Almighty could do that, and she had chosen that Aziraphale would not fall for his transgressions. That knowledge allowed the principality to keep his faith in her, cradling it close to his chest like a small and precious life all of its own. With a final smile at the young woman behind the glass, he turned back to John.

"Doctor Watson?" He said in surprise.

John sniffled, wiping his eyes. "Sorry. Sorry, that was... That was really moving," he said, quickly choking back any and all emotion. His tears hadn't quite fallen, but they were close. He could hardly believe that Fell had reconnected him so quickly with his more empathetic side; he felt like a young man again, still at St Bart's, feeling ready to change lives, save lives. 

"Thank you," he said. His smile, luminous and genuine, was like a crossbow bolt to the stomach. 

"Shall we, uh, get back to our - our other halves, then?" John said, then scrabbled to save himself as he'd realised what he'd said. "N-not that Sherlock's my other half! He's - he's just my - we're flat mates. We're just flat mates."

"I never thought anything different, doctor," he said smoothly, brushing past him to leave the flat. Embarrassed and flustered, Watson cursed himself thorouhly before daring to turn and follow him. 

"There," Sherlock said, pointing his finger on the frozen CCTV image. Crowley leaned over his shoulder.

"He spikes their drinks, then escorts them out claiming they've had enough," the demon observed distastefully. They had just been watching Daisy's last night at the bar.

"Call Lestrade, tell him to impound the bar's commercial vehicle. I assume it's a van," he said. "Give him the name George Puce. Scotland Yard can take it from here."

"Agreed," he said, scrolling through his phone to find the number. "Although I'd have liked to get my hands on him for a quiet word beforehand..."

No matter how reformed he was, Crowley was still a demon, and demons never lose their vengeful streak. Angels have it, too, in the form of their holy wrath. It is a part of their essence. To Sherlock, however, who eyed up the redhead suspiciously as he made the call, it sounded like a criminal background. 

He had suspected that Crowley may have had previous criminal involvements. He had already observed low-level antisocial behaviour, such as his reckless driving and general standoffishness. His apparent disregard for the lives of pedestrians indicated a deeper corruption. Had he known, however, that those pedestrians were guaranteed to be miraculously unharmed if hit, he may have felt differently. Lacking that knowledge, he concluded that Crowley was probably an ex-gang member, at least. Probable past offences would include assault, theft, GBH and, maybe, murder. The facial tattoo may be connected to his previous gang. He made a mental note to research that later. 

After notifying Lestrade, and with the case probably solved, they got back in the Bentley for another ride at breakneck pace through London. "This was a quick one," the demon commented, putting his foot down already.

"Yes. Dreadfully simple," he sighed, staring out at the blur of London. "I try to avoid the dull ones."

"But you'll tag along if it means you can snoop around in people's private lives," he replied sharply, his line of sight directed out the windscreen. 

Sherlock gave him a sideways glance. "So you knew," he said.

"That you're only here to poke around and find out who we are?" He said, swerving sharply around a motorbike. "Yeah. Obviously."

"And Fell?"

"Clueless," he said. He looked at the detective dryly. "Don't look so surprised. He's very clever, but he's too trusting. If you say you're here to help, he'll believe you."

"Is that how you got him?" He asked, an accusation hidden in his tone.

With a choke and roar from the engine, the car got even faster. 127 mph, straight through central London. Sherlock had hit a nerve.

"Don't imply things, boy," he snarled. He almost opted for human instead of boy, but didn't want to appear too abstract. "I love him, whatever you think, and if either you or your pet blogger think you can get in the way, you're dead wrong."

"And if we try?" He said, pushing his luck. He was counting on the fact that Crowley wouldn't crash his car just to spite him. 

"I'll burn you," he said darkly. A cold chill gripped Sherlock by the spine.

"What did you say?" He said, hoping his ears had deceived him.

"I said, I'll burn you," he repeated, raising his voice, spitting venom with every word. "I'll burn the heart out of you, Sherlock."

With that fierce threat, he slammed on the breaks. The car skidded to a halt outside the book shop, and before Sherlock could say a word, he was on the pavement already. He clenched his fists. The scent of chlorine filled his mind, and the sound of lapping water and lilting Irish accent, saying just exactly that. I'll burn you. I'll burn the heart out of you. Could it be a coincidence? 

He barely had time to think. He hurried after Crowley, following him into the shop. Fell and John were chatting in front of the desk. The demon still held tension in his shoulders. He stalked towards Aziraphale with a single-minded purpose, and pulled him into a deep, unapologetically passionate kiss. Sherlock knew it was a demonstration. It was supposed to prove a point to him, to stake his claim. However, it was something different entirely that made his stomach drop.

John stepped away from the two men, quickly looking away. That may have been a normal response to PDA, if he hadn't risked a tiny glance back up at them. Sherlock read a lot in that glance. It was sadness, resignation, bitterness... It was jealousy. His jaw went slightly slack. John's gaze lingered a split second too long; when Crowley pulled away, he saw.

"Problem, Watson?" He growled.

The doctor jumped. "No. No, I - " he stammered, and stopped himself, looking at Fell with pink cheeks, and then quickly at the floor. Yeah, that sealed it. Sherlock could see the demon's brow furrow, and with a rush of dread, he realised that Crowley was definitely the possessive type. That might not have been a problem, if he hadn't just echoed Moriarty's exact words minutes before.

Sherlock grabbed John's arm, pulling him to his side. "The case is solved," he told Fell, who was slightly shell-shocked, his glasses askew on his face. "Lestrade will be gathering evidence and making the arrest soon. Good working with you."

With that, he manhandled John unceremoniously out of the shop. He could feel Crowley's ferocious loathing at his back. He was on the edge of a cliff here, he could feel it. The fall was far longer than he'd first suspected. He walked John down the street at a brisk pace, ignoring his protests, until they were a safe distance away.

"Sherlock!" John exclaimed, struggling free at last. They stopped walking, facing one another. "What was all that about back there?"

"Shouldn't I be asking the same?" He replied irritably, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

"What?" He asked, shutting his eyes for a terse moment before opening them again. 

"Before I walked into the shop, Crowley threatened me. I've suspected that he may have had a criminal past for a while, but it's worse than I'd anticipated," he said quickly. "He repeated Moriarty's threat, verbatim. I'll burn you, I'll burn the heart out of you. I think our old friend might be trying to get me to come out and play again."

John's shock lasted only for a moment. "Well - that's - that's bad," he said, then frowned. "What does it have to do with what happened in the shop, though?"

"He threatened me because he didn't want us getting in the way of his relationship," he said, as if the next step was obvious. 

The doctor paused, thinking it over. "No, I don't follow."

"Well, John, it appears that since this morning, you seem to have developed a crush on Mr Fell," he said peevishly. "And Crowley has noticed."


	5. Excerpts From The Cases Of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title says it all really. These are snippets from the cases that Aziraphale and Crowley work on, alongside Holmes and Watson

The Case of the Mayfair Pickpocket 

The rival detective teams were now taking cases together. They had agreed to operate out of 221B, since John was still slightly nervous of the snake in Fell's shop, and the fact that he never seemed to be able to locate it on a whim. Crowley usually found this quite funny for some reason, to watch his boyfriend shuffle his books around to look for the serpent. Currently, Fell and Sherlock were bickering. It had to happen eventually. 

"There is only one possible explanation," Sherlock insisted loudly.

"Need I remind you, Mr Holmes, that your method is induction, not deduction; the art of discerning what is probably true," he said in return, hands curled into indignant fists at his side. "You must admit the possibility of being wrong."

"No!"

They continued like this with little sign of it ending. Crowley and Watson sat in the armchairs near the fire, watching with exasperation. The doctor leaned forward, muttering to the demon across from him: 

"Who d'you think's right, then?"

"Who knows? For my money it just looks like a big bloody coincidence," he replied disinterestedly. 

"Oh, come on. Only red leather wallets being taken? They aren't that common," he scoffed.

He rolled his eyes, though it was hard to tell behind the glasses. "Just because you don't have one," he said. "And besides, how would our pickpocket know they were red before they took them?"

Watson had to concede that point. Sherlock had been insisting that the thief wanted red wallets only, while Fell thought he wanted leather wallets. He sat back, watching the argument unfold while Crowley got bored and started playing flappy bird. One of his finer inventions, that one. His programming skills had gotten so much better since his first venture into video game design, which had begun with Cat Mario. 

"If you're so certain, why don't we run a little experiment?" Fell suggested finally, drawing everyone's attention, and breaking Crowley's point streak. "I'll walk down the street with a brown leather wallet - the kind that the pickpocket really wants -"

Sherlock huffed, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. 

" - and you walk down the street with a red fabric wallet," he finished. "We shall see which one gets taken."

"It won't work. It's impossible to pickpocket me without me noticing, our man will know that," he said snootily, turning away from Fell to down the last of his cold tea. 

Fell groaned. He had never encountered such arrogance, not even from the despots and scholars and artists of the past. In the end, they negotiated a deal: Watson and Fell would make the walk with the wallets. Crowley had volunteered, but they decided amongst themselves that he didn't exactly look like an easy target. He might skew the results.

As it turned out, neither wallet got taken. They returned to 221B with a frustrated Sherlock, who paced wildly back and forth with his hands pressed together under his nose. Trains of thought, deductions and strands of logic spilled out of his mouth relentlessly. John went to him.

"Sherlock, calm down," he said impatiently.

"Calm? I am calm!" He shouted, stopping abruptly. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and suddenly froze.

John glanced over his shoulder at the other two, checking if he had missed something. Fell shrugged, and Crowley smirked. "Sherlock?"

This snapped him back to reality. In a flurry of nervous energy, he turned out his pockets, spinning around, eyes scanning the floor. "Where is it?" He said. "I had it in my right pocket. I know I did."

"What? What have you lost?"

"My wallet," he said, eyes wide in disbelief. "But - I didn't get out of the cab. The pickpocket couldn't have taken it."

John sighed. "It probably just fell out. If we give them a call - "

Someone cleared their throat behind them. They both turned. With a snide grin, Crowley held up a brown wallet triumphantly. "Right here, actually," he said.

Sherlock stared. "How?" He asked shortly.

"Well, you said it'd be impossible to pickpocket you without you noticing," he said smugly, tossing the wallet across to his waiting hands. "I took that as a challenge."

Aziraphale couldn't help lighting up. He pressed his hand over his mouth in a half-hearted attempt to stifle his laughter, but it was no use. Crowley puffed out his chest, the corner of his mouth curling into a distinctly self-satisfied smirk. He had done it mainly to impress Aziraphale. Even John allowed himself a small chuckle, seeing Sherlock knocked down to size for once. He patted his shoulder in mock sympathy. 

"No harm done, eh?" He said. He was right, and it was only Sherlock's pride that was wounded later in the week, when they caught the pickpocket and discovered that he was red-green colourblind. 

The Case of the Brixton Hellhounds

Sherlock slunk through the shadows. The street was deserted. They were right on the tail of their criminal. This was a man who kidnapped dogs from their gardens, or from outside shops, or even from their very homes, and turned them into killers. Many a pet owner in Brixton discovered their once-harmless pooch on the 9 o'clock news, having attacked a pedestrian or, worse, been shot for their aggression. Why? Best guess, a dogfighting ring. Rejects would be turned out to roam the streets.

They - and by they, he unfortunately meant Fell - had figured out his pattern. He'd hit every third street where at least one dog lived, and up to three houses on that street where more than six dogs lived separately in the area. It was an easy one to miss, John had consoled him, but he had been looking admiringly at Fell as he'd said that. 

He was determined he'd catch the dog thief, and the reign of the so-called Hellhounds would end. He was at one end of the street, John behind him, with their rivals at the other end. 

There was a scuffle. A dog barked, a lonely sound that echoed across the concrete. A chain rattled. Sherlock's eyes landed on a silhouette, crouched by a rusted gate with a pair of bolt cutters. His eyes narrowed. He broke into a sprint, but his footsteps alerted the man.

His quarry leapt to his feet. The bolt cutters clattered to the ground. Sherlock gave chase, ignoring the shouts of his companions behind him. His feet pounded on the Tarmac, his gaze locked on. He skidded around a corner. The man ahead glanced over his shoulder, vaulting over a gate and through a park. Another sound was approaching from behind.

A dark blur passed him. It was accelerating fast, too fast to be human. The moonlight strained to shine on London tonight, to little effect. Sherlock watched the shadow. It was gaining on the thief. In a flurry of limbs, it pounced, bringing him to the ground with a thump and a shout of pain.

Sherlock skidded to a halt beside them. Suddenly, he recognised the figure with its knee between the thief's shoulder blades, keeping him down. "Crowley," he said. 

He grunted in response. The thief was struggling to escape. Fell and John caught up a few minutes later, after they had cuffed the man and had him stood between them, sullen faced and defeated.

"Took your time," Crowley sneered at them as they got their breaths back.

"It's... How did you...?" John gasped, leaning heavily on his knees. He jumped when Fell clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Crowley is a very good sprinter," he panted, a proud smile on his face. "I've never seen anyone outrun him."

"My stamina's pretty good too. Right, angel?" he said, wiggling eyebrows suggestively, and John wrestled with a spark of revulsion and jealousy.

Fell's cheeks went pink. "Behave yourself, Crowley."

The Case of the White Crime Scene 

Aziraphale and Crowley had been having a lazy morning together, basking in a warm afterglow and an even warmer bed. A pair of vast white wings spread out over the sheets. Crowley leaned over them, running his hands through the downy feathers near Aziraphale's back. He pressed kisses between the wing joints, massaging them gently. Wing grooming was a favourite pass time of theirs, especially with the cool breeze blowing in from the window and soft classical music playing from the corner. 

"We should do this more often," Crowley purred, gently lifting loose feathers out of the wings. 

"Agreed," he replied, eyes half closed with his face buried in the pillow. 

Their peace was disturbed, however, by an obnoxious ringing. Aziraphale groaned, sitting up. Crowley tried to push him back down, pressing kisses to his neck and whispering "Just let it ring, angel," but to no avail. 

"It might be important, dear," he said, kissing his demon on the temple and shuffling out of the room, his luminous wings tucked neatly behind his back. 

The phone call had been Lestrade, summoning them urgently to a crime scene. They arrived fairly promptly, and walked under the police tape while Crowley tried to stop Aziraphale from fussing. 

"You look fine, stop it," he said, pushing his hands back down by his sides. He kept trying to fiddle with the buttons of his shirt. 

"I feel terribly underdressed," he muttered self-consciously. In their hurry to get out of the house, he had left without his coat, waistcoat or even his bow tie. Crowley had even suggested he roll his sleeves up till just before his elbows, to complete his new look. 

"Don't be ridiculous, your shirt alone is probably worth more than a policeman's entire uniform," he said, flicking the white shirt collar. "You look fantastic. You're even showing me up."

"Oh, stop it," he replied weakly, shooting him a brief glance full of nerves and appreciation. Crowley had thrown on an old t-shirt and jeans, and wore it as confidently as he did his usual clothes. He envied that self-assured demeanour, and at the same time loved him all the more for it. 

They ran across John by the front door of the building. He raised his eyebrows upon seeing them, and Crowley felt a bitter sense of possessiveness in his gut. "You look different," John said. His eyes flicked up and down, tracing the lines of Aziraphale's bare forearms and open shirt collar. 

"Yes, just a tad, don't I?" Aziraphale said self-consciously.

"I - I didn't say it was bad. It's good, nice," he stammered. His cheeks began heat up. He cleared his throat awkwardly, no doubt feeling the demonic glare boring into him. "Suits you."

"Let's go take a look at this crime scene, angel," Crowley cut in, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him closer. He felt an imperious desire to keep his angel close, now that he seemed to have another man sniffing around what wasn't his. "Lead the way, doctor."

Nodding and sensing the need to keep his mouth shut, John took them up to where Sherlock was already. The top floor of the building was disused, with crusted browning carpets and off-colour magnolia paint that looked more like yellow now. It was a bit of a shock when they opened the door, stepping into a pure white room.

It was freshly painted with luminous white paint. It was bare and featureless, with no furniture anywhere. The floor had been painted, too. The corpse on the floor was a sickening sight: deathly, inhumanly pale, with a strong chemical smell. It was dressed in a white nightgown, like the ones Crowley and Aziraphale remembered from a previous era. Sherlock, jarringly dark in the pale room, got to his feet and began to explain without looking at them.

"Body of a twenty year old female, asphyxiated and exsanguinated," he said, tucking his magnifying glass into his pocket. "The body's been bleached."

"Fuck," Crowley grunted, eyes fixed on the grisly sight. Sherlock fixed him with a judgemental stare. "What?"

"Eloquent," he said dryly, taking out his phone while Aziraphale began to approach the body, leaning down to scan for clues. 

The angel hummed to himself, his eyes betraying the way his heart broke for this poor girl. All the same, he considered it his duty to help her, even after her death, now he was here. He mulled over the significance of the whiteness. Clearly, the murderer had set the scene out to be found this way, unless he had planned on returning for some reason. Sexual motive couldn't be ruled out, however much it made his stomach turn. With a sigh, he got back to his feet. He didn't notice what fluttered down from his back, landing near the body. Sherlock did, however, as he walked around the room.

He snatched an evidence bag from his pocket, picking it up with his gloved hand. "Interesting," he muttered, eying it up through the plastic bag. 

"What is?" Fell asked, and his stomach dropped when saw what Sherlock had picked up. He would know one of his own feathers anywhere.

"A white feather, too large to belong to a dove," he said, holding it up to the light. "Swan or goose, at a guess. Definitely not synthetic."

Aziraphale shared a panicked glance with Crowley behind Sherlock's back. "I don't think it's connected," he blabbed.

"Why not?" He said, turning to him. "It fits the pattern of the crime scene. Why wouldn't it be connected?"

"It could have just... Blown in," he suggested nervously, gesturing vaguely with his hands. Crowley nodded, agreeing perhaps a little to enthusiastically. 

"I thought you were supposed to be good at this," Sherlock sniped, and strode out to update Lestrade in his usual hit-and-run fashion. Crowley grimaced.

"Okay... Maybe no more wing grooming right before we visit a crime scene," he muttered quietly.

"Agreed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the same layout, then we're back to the normal flow of the plot :)  
Thank you all so much for the great comments, it really makes my day, I love all my readers <3


	6. More Excerpts From The Cases Of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: graphic violence ahead, under the section marked 'The Case of the Black Looking Glass'

The Case of the Missing Kingpin

Sherlock had refused this case. It was boring, he said. Aziraphale disagreed wholeheartedly, but it was nice to cover something on his own for once, with only Crowley to bother him. He scanned the map on the wall of the study. Strings had been pinned onto it, but they all hung limply toward the floor. Whatever they had been pinned to had been removed. It was hard to tell which of the small holes in the paper had once belonged to the kingpin; he'd have to tell Anderson to measure the lengths of each, and extrapolate where they had once led to from there. That might help them figure out where their criminal had fled to. 

Crowley had gone wandering, having lost interest in the map five minutes ago. He ran into Anderson in the bathroom, taking samples of the blood in the sink. He leaned against the doorframe, watching in silence. The forensic specialist looked at him a few times out of the corner of his eye before speaking up.

"Can I help you with something?" He snapped finally, turning away from his blood samples.

"Nope. Just bored," he replied, sensing an opportunity to cause trouble. "Humans can be so tiresome."

Anderson did a double take. "What?"

"I said, people can be so tiresome," he replied, testing his reaction.

"No. No, you said - you said humans, as if you aren't one," he said, with a note of suspicion in his tone. That was interesting. Crowley had always privately thought that it would only take one good kick to send Anderson over the edge into becoming a full-blown conspiracy theorist.

"Did I? How careless of me," he drawled disinterestedly, examining his nails. He flashed Anderson a wide grin, full of gleaming and inhumanly pointed teeth. He took a sharp gasp, his magnifying glass clattering to the floor. "Wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea, would we?"

With that, he turned around, chuckling to himself as he heard Anderson spluttering and trying to get words out. His teeth returned to their usual human shape. He could have plenty of fun with this. Deciding that less is more, he returned to the study, but Aziraphale wasn't there.

The angel had gone outside, looking for Lestrade. He looked back and forth, amongst the clamour of activity and flashing lights. Spotting Donovan, he hurried over.

"Sergeant Donovan," he said amiably. "Have you seen Inspector Lestrade?"

"He's just gone round the corner for something, he'll be back in a second," she replied, gesturing beyond the police tape. She eyed him up suspiciously. "Why do you do this, then?"

"I'm sorry?" He said, his hands folded neatly behind his back.

"Sherlock does it because he gets off on it. He's addicted. It's weird, but I understand that," she said insistently. Without Crowley here, her judgemental, untrusting voice had come out again. "But you're not like that. You're not excited by - by corpses or weird little details in the crimes. So why are you here?"

Aziraphale knew very well that he couldn't say 'because Sherlock Holmes uprooted my boyfriend's tomato plants, and it all got rather out of hand after that'. That would only raise more questions. He opened his mouth, only to shut it again, dumbfounded by the question.

"I'm afraid I can't give you a satisfactory answer, my dear girl," he replied finally. "Just know that I mean well, in all the things I do. Protecting people, it's... It's what I was put on this earth to do."

She stared blankly at him. Before she could form a response, Lestrade reappeared, catching Aziraphale's attention. He walked off, leaving her frowning at his back. It was admirable, as responses go. He was so different from Sherlock... But he still had no right to be wandering around crime scenes. A civilian was a civilian, she decided firmly, turning back to her work, and they didn't belong here. 

The Case of the Black Looking Glass

A woman had disappeared. She was staying at a hostel, in an unsavoury part of London, as part of a budget holiday in the city. Before her disappearance, she had painted all the mirrors in her room solid black. Aziraphale had managed to connect the case to other women's disappearances, too. They had worked the case for two days when Sherlock had his breakthrough; the mirror wasn't a mirror at all. It was a window. 

There was no time to waste. Aziraphale, Crowley, John and Sherlock raced to the hostel in the small hours of the morning. They hadn't had time to call the police. Lives were at stake. 

They reached the blacked-out mirror. No one had been at the front desk. The hostel had shut down once the police got involved, and hadn't reopened. It was never likely to, now. Sherlock ran his fingers hastily along the edges of the glass, feeling for a latch. He tugged at it, but it didn't budge. 

He took a step back, thoughts racing behind his eyes. "Locked. Given enough time and the right leverage, I could probably - " 

He was interrupted when Crowley's foot splintered the glass. "Moving on," the demon said, climbing inside the dark passageway that had been revealed. 

Aziraphale stepped into the inky shadows. The tunnel stretched in both directions, sloping up one way and down the other. Crowley had already begun to descend, and Sherlock had wordlessly taken up the opposite direction, with Watson close behind. Aziraphale followed his lover into the dark, down the humid passageway that was veined with leaky pipes and low-hanging electrical wiring. Every now and then, they would pass another viewing window into a hostel room. 

Eventually, the path opened up. They ducked under a large pipe, stepping into a chamber with a low ceiling and poor lighting. Sobbing and laboured breathing rasped through the air. Aziraphale's eyes strained to see, but could only make out faint outlines in the dark. 

"Let there be light!" He said, with a snap of his fingers. White luminescence flooded the room, and the true horror was laid bare.

Young human women lay in cages, filthy and malnourished, many of them unconcious. A few sets of eyes widened and cried out at the light. Many were still delirious. Crowley cursed under his breath. "Human trafficking," he said, his voice thick with revulsion. 

Something creaked in the far corner. Door hinges, groaning, bleeding sound into the tortured atmosphere... Their eyes snapped onto it. The blackness that remained stirred, finally spitting out its stowaway. It was the hostel manager: he was a stocky, powerfully built man, who had always worn turtlenecks when they had seen him. Now he had only a tank top, and the long fingernail scratches down his throat were put in the cold spotlight. 

"Mr Mariot," Aziraphale called across the room. He kept his voice level and civil, despite the desperate, disgusted rage beneath. "We are here to arrest you. Come quietly, and no one else needs to get hurt."

"You two?" he sneered, cracking his knuckles. "A fat bookseller and his scrawny emo whore... You ain't takin' me down."

Crowley saw something change in Aziraphale: it was in his posture, the way his shoulders sat, the tension that crept over his body like vines... A deep primordial fire was rising through his body, into his chest, spreading through his veins and reawakening the identity he had encased within polite smiles and good manners. The Principality of the Eastern Gate, Guardian of Eden, shrugged off his coat, holding it out to Crowley's waiting hands. 

"Kick his ass, angel, I've got your coat," he said with dark encouragement. 

Aziraphale took a few steps forward, into the bare centre of the basement. Mariot joined him, a perverse smile on his face. 

"First I'm gonna beat you to a pulp," he said, and then pointed over to Crowley, who was standing protectively in front of the prisoners. "Then I'm gonna gut your boyfriend."

Aziraphale said nothing. His soft blue eyes had turned to steel. The two men began to circle one another. Mariot was cocky, taunting his opponent, beckoning him forward and lunging at him, trying to startle him. The angel never flinched. He waited. He bided his time.

Mariot surged forward, swinging at his head. Aziraphale ducked, ramming his shoulder into his stomach and driving him back. He cried out as his spine slammed against the hard iron of an empty cage. He kicked back. Aziraphale absorbed the first blow, but was driven back by the second. Punches hailed down on his head and chest. He fought back, catching Mariot's arm and twisting it until and ugly pop rang out. The criminal howled, his left arm useless. Falling backward, he snatched a length of pipe from the floor. 

He caught the angel across the head, tearing his skin. It was only a glancing blow. As he ducked, Aziraphale saw a crowbar skittering across the concrete toward him, and the telltale flash of yellow eyes just behind. 

"Look out!" Crowley yelled after throwing the weapon. 

Aziraphale looked up just in time to block the pipe. The clang of metal on metal tore at the stagnant air. He had the advantage of both his arms, but blood began to drip into his right eye. Another strike whistled past his ear, narrowly missing. He swung with all his strength, feeling the crowbar connect. Mariot yelled in pain. Aziraphale risked wiping his eyes, and opened them again in time to see his opponent swaying on his feet, barely recovering from the blow to the crown of his head. The angel saw his chance.

He drew his arm back, swinging with all the wrath of God. Mariot's jaw cracked, and teeth scattered over the floor. Aziraphale waited until he looked up again, with blood dribbling pathetically down his chin and his jaw sitting at an odd angle, before he opened his mouth to speak. He was about to tell him to give in, that it was over. Mariot cut the words right out of his throat, however, when he spat a fine spray of blood and saliva onto his waistcoat, and began laughing with a dumb, spiteful glee. Curling his lip, Aziraphale drew back again. 

The second strike brought him to the ground. It landed on the side of his head, and he crumpled, unconscious, in a shuddering heap. Drawing in deep breaths, Aziraphale rested the crowbar on his shoulder. "Not bad for a fat bookseller," he panted triumphantly. He heard Crowley laugh, and felt himself pulled into a soft embrace, his face peppered with victory kisses. 

Somewhere up above, John raced down the tunnels. He and Sherlock had come to a dead end up on the higher floors, which could only mean that Fell and Crowley had stumbled headlong into the action, alone. The doctor's heart hammered. Maybe Crowley could hold his own in a fight, but what about Fell? He was soft, and sweet, perhaps even the squeamish type. Would he be able to defend himself? Up ahead, he spotted the hole in the wall where they had come in, but found themselves stopped in their tracks by a familiar face.

"Lestrade!" John cried, skidding to a halt, with Sherlock almost crashing into his back. "We have to get down there, Fell could be in danger, he - "

"He's fine. Crowley, too," the inspector interrupted. "They called us a couple of minutes ago. Looks like you lot have uncovered a human trafficking ring. Paramedics are down in the basement now, giving emergency care."

"And the perpetrator?" Sherlock panted, leaning over John's shoulder. "Where is he? Mr Mariot, dark hair, brown eyes, muscular, probably - "

"Taken into custody. He was in pretty bad shape," he said. "The ambulance crew reckoned he had at least three cracked or broken ribs, nine missing teeth, a broken and dislocated jaw and a dislocated elbow. Oh, and a concussion. Maybe a cracked cranium too, not sure yet."

John's mouth fell open. "Jesus, okay," he said.

"Fell and Crowley are outside, if you feel like a chat," Lestrade said dryly. "I'd watch yourself, though. Fell looked pretty out of it when we found him."

"Is he okay?" John asked, perhaps a little more worried than a casual acquaintance should be.

"He's fine. Just a few scrapes," he said, gesturing vaguely and disappearing into the dark with his flashlight. 

Dawn was beginning to rear its head over the London skyline. The flashing lights of police cars painted the street in psychedelic colour, and the overnight frost had not yet dissipated. An ambulance sat by the path. A dark shape, lanky and very familiar, stood beside it. John nudged Sherlock's arm, hurrying over. Hearing footsteps, Crowley turned around, and John's stomach dropped for a split second.

Fell sat on the back of the ambulance, with a flimsy shock blanket draped over his shoulders. Blood stained his front, and splattered up his face and neck. For a moment, he looked terribly hurt. Then, John realised he had almost no wounds. There was just a cut above his eye. Tentatively, he drew closer.

"What happened?" He asked. "I heard what happened to Mariot."

"Yes," Sherlock piped up finally, smirking down at the angel. "Well done, by the way."

John frowned at him. "What are you - ?" He began, and then it clicked. He glanced at Crowley in disbelief, hoping he'd back him up. "You're not saying that - that Fell could have - ?"

"He can, and he did," Crowley chipped in proudly. He was beaming from ear to ear, and still had Aziraphale's coat draped over his arm. "I saw the whole thing. Mariot didn't stand a chance. It was heroic. I was swooning, I don't mind telling you."

Fell shook his head, but he was smiling. "Oh do stop, you old snake," he mumbled, laughing slightly. 

"I assume you were a soldier, once," Sherlock said, his hands behind his back. John shot him a sideways glance, then looked curiously at Fell. "Judging by your posture, your hand calluses, and obvious combat experience."

"One does not forget one's training," Aziraphale replied vaguely, resting his head against Crowley's hip tiredly. It was true; he was a guard-duty angel, and the training process had been rigorous. Even after 6000 years, the old lessons were still there in his head. He would have been ten times as deadly if he'd had a sword in his hands instead of a crowbar. 

"Why didn't you mention it before?" John asked, smiling like an excited teenager. "I've been in the army myself. I was a captain, fifth Northumberland fusiliers. And you?"

Crowley's long fingers tangled themselves in Aziraphale's hair. He could feel the angel's mounting panic: how could he answer Watson without lying to him? 

"I think that's enough talk of fighting for tonight," the demon cut in, fixing John with an unfriendly stare. He looked down at his boyfriend, who met his gaze expectantly. "What would you say to a nice long bath and a back massage at home, angel?"

He smiled brightly, his eyes half-shut with exhaustion. "That sounds delightful, my love."

Sherlock took John's elbow, guiding him away from the tender scene. He waited until they were a few car-lengths away, and out of hearing range. He leaned in, muttering in his ear "You're giving yourself away."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, avoiding his gaze. He had always vehemently denied being attracted to Fell, and would continue to do so. He tried to tell himself that he wasn't interested. He wrote off the warm sensation in his chest as heartburn, although it felt nothing like it. As for the way he felt when he saw Crowley with Fell, kissing him, offering him massages, calling him angel...? That was just stress, and general annoyance. He'd never liked PDA. It was nothing more. 

The "Case" of the Bookshop Vampire 

Anderson watched Crowley over the police cars. He'd hated being around him ever since he'd seen his fangs. It was so incredibly, blindingly obvious that he wasn't human. He had always suspected that the supernatural was real... Since then, he'd looked up information about vampires on the Internet. He had, at the time, been taking samples of blood, after all. Crowley had probably been drawn to the smell. It would explain why he just... stood there. Doing nothing, probably tasting the air. His skin crawled; he wondered if Crowley had been sizing him up, ready to strike. 

He'd seen other things, too. Once, after a case had been closed, he'd seen Crowley's tongue flicker out of his mouth. It was long and forked, no mistake. He'd tried to tell Lestrade. In his exact words, his response had been "Anderson, you've been at work since 6 am. Go home."

Worst thing is, Crowley knew. He bloody knew that Anderson was onto him. He shot him mocking smiles and sarcastic little waves, and sometimes even stuck out his inhuman tongue at him, when no one else was looking. It was just a shame that sunlight didn't seem to burn him like it ought to. Stuck in his own thoughts, Anderson hadn't noticed the demon sidling up to him from the side.

"Hey there, Anderssssson," he hissed, slinging an arm around his shoulders and pulling him into what was almost a headlock. 

Anderson yelped, struggling, to no avail. "Let me go," he snapped.

"Aw, why?" He sneered, tightening his grip. "Just trying to be friendly."

"Listen, you," he said stubbornly, wriggling out the hold. He straightened out his shirt, not able to look Crowley in the face for a moment. He lowered his voice: "I know what you are."

He cocked an eyebrow, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "You do, do you?"

"Yes," he said, raising his chin and glancing around to make sure no one was in earshot. "Vampire."

Crowley held back a laugh. He kept a straight face, even managing to turn his lips down as if he was shocked. "Hey, not so loud," he said, taking a step forward. Anderson took a step back. After a tense standoff, the redhead had stalked off in silence, leaving Anderson feeling rather victorious.

After that little interaction, the signs became even more obvious. Sometimes it was like he wasn't even trying to hide it. Anderson noticed everything: the way he claimed to have a garlic "allergy", or that he never seemed to eat at all. On one memorable day, he had point blank refused to set foot on consecrated ground. The crime scene had been in the church nave, but Crowley had gone no further than the cemetery gate. What was most worrying of all, however, was how much of his attention was focused on Fell's throat at any given time. He spent much of his time nuzzled close to it, staying there breathing in his scent whenever he could get away with it. Anderson had even once been trying to have a professional conversation with Fell, when Crowley strolled up from behind and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder. It might not have been a problem, if he hadn't begun grinning nastily and silently gnashing his sharp teeth at Anderson, unbeknownst to Fell, who was valiantly trying to stay focused on the case. It was at that point that he could no longer stand idly by. 

He waited until Fell was alone, examining a crime scene with his customary care. Anderson liked Fell better than Sherlock. He made a concerted effort not to contaminate or disturb crime scenes, and he actually behaved like a human being. He honestly didn't want him to get hurt. He clicked the door shut behind him and cleared his throat. 

"Mr Fell," he said. The other man looked up at the sound of his odd nasal voice.

"Hello, Mr Anderson," he replied, turning his full attention to him. "Can I help you?"

"I was hoping to help you, actually," he said.

"Oh?"

"Yes, I need you to listen very, very carefully," he said, dropping his voice lower and walking over to stand close to him. Fell leaned back slightly, clearly uncomfortable with the sudden proximity. "I think you might be in danger."

"Why is that?" He asked doubtfully, taking a step backwards.

"I think that Crowley is... not human," he murmured. He stared at Fell's eyes, watching them widen in shock. 

"N - Now, Mr Anderson!" He spluttered. "I don't know where on earth you are pulling these fanciful ideas from, but I can assure you, Crowley is more human than most!"

"You have to listen to me, Mr Fell, he's a vampire!" He insisted, clutching at the air to accentuate his point. There was a beat of silence.

"Pardon?"

"He is a vampire. I've been watching him for weeks," he continued manically. "I'm worried that he's planning to use you to feed on. Or worse, he's going to turn you into one of him."

It took Aziraphale a moment to close his mouth. "Mr Anderson," he said, calmer than before, "I respect you deeply, but you must listen to yourself."

"I am!"

"Crowley is not a vampire. He is not going to - to 'feed' on me," he said, wincing at the crude wording. "I am perfectly safe."

Frustrated and somewhat embarrassed, Anderson left the room. He muttered under his breath, tugging his hair and trying to understand how Fell couldn't see what he could. With a sigh, he pushed the door shut. Then, he let out a surprised shriek.

Crowley had been stood behind the door. He smirked, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall. "Nice try, Anderson," he said, standing up.

Anderson slumped against the door, gasping for his breath. His heart hammered. Crowley suddenly drew in close, clamping his shoulder in a vice grip. 

"He's mine," he snarled, so close to his ear that he could feel his breath. "Back off, or you're next."

Crowley stepped away, and sauntered down the corridor. He could hear Anderson's desperate attempts to get his breathing back under control. When he was around the corner, he threw his head back, a chuckle bubbling up from his throat as the joy of mischief glowed through him. He was glad he hadn't told Aziraphale about this little game he'd been playing, or that might have been a lot less fun. Although he'd probably end up having to explain where Anderson got these ideas from, when he got home...


	7. Downtime

Sherlock read Crowley's blog, each entry interspersed with snide commentary on the rival team and his usual cutting humour. It was undergoing a boom in popularity since they began to work alongside one another. He read each post six times, at least. If Crowley was working for Moriarty, if it was part of the game... The clues would be in the AZ Fell & Cro blog. 

In a different quarter of London, far away from the paranoid detective and his repressed bisexual friend (who was still firmly in a crisis), Crowley and Aziraphale were taking a nice day off. It was very well deserved, and the angel was always happy to close his shop for the day. 

They basked in the pleasant weather, under the canopy of a cafe. "I do believe, Crowley," Aziraphale said contentedly, "that I've never tried so many new things in one year."

"Really," he said, lounging over his metal chair, inviting him to continue. 

"Yes. First it was that little choose-your-own-adventure book from Adam, then it was that delightful American invention, chicken and waffles... Then detective work, and now vegan cookies," he said, sipping his tea. The crumbs of the cookie in question were on a plate at his elbow. "I have to say, I'm rather pleased with all of them."

Crowley smiled. "I'm glad," he said.

"Have been enjoying our little adventures?" He asked, running his finger over the rim of his teacup. 

"The blog's fun," he replied, tilting his head back to appreciate the breeze. "I've had my own back, though, I think, for the tomato plants."

Aziraphale laughed. The noise sang like silver bells in the demon's ears. "Oh my, I'd forgotten that's how this all started," he said. He shook his head, still smiling. "We are bad, aren't we?"

"You don't know the meaning of the word, angel," he replied, leaning up to take his smoothie off the table. "So when are we going to call it quits?"

"Hm?"

"We can't keep playing these games forever. It's fun, but it's just a hobby," he said, slurping his drink noisily through the straw. "And if we go too far, drive Holmes out of business... Suddenly there's no one around to take our place when we leave."

"It won't go on for that long, my dear," he said, watching the humans wandering up and down the streets. "Just a few more cases. I'm not quite ready to leave it all behind just yet."

The demon smirked, pulling his glasses down just enough that his yellow eyes poked over the top. "Having fun, angel?"

"With you?" He said, reaching across the table to take his hand. "Always."

Crowley held Aziraphale's hand with the kind of gentleness that would be considered unbecoming of a demon. The dark glass blocked his eyes, but the angel's vibrant blue seemed to look straight through it. They began to lean in. The crockery stepped aside in deference, nothing blocking their paths as their lips met above the small floral centrepiece of their table. 

For the remainder of their meal, their hands were together on the table. It was pleasant, and when the waiter appeared with the bill, they were slightly baffled.

"Terribly sorry, dear boy, but have you got the right table?" Aziraphale asked. The waiter was just a teen, probably only trying to make ends meet. "We didn't ask for the bill just yet."

The waiter winced, pressing his lips together hard. "I'm really sorry, sir, but the manager asked me to bring it over," he said awkwardly. He placed it on the table.

"We've only been here half an hour," Crowley drawled, a slightly unfriendly edge appearing in his tone. 

"I know. I'm so sorry, I'm just the messenger," he said, looking down at his shoes. "My - um - my boss said... You should probably leave."

Aziraphale glanced at the receipt. His eyebrows raised in surprise. There was note in biro at the top: this is a Christian establishment. Don't come back. The angel's lip curled immediately, righteous anger pooling in his chest. With a sharp movement, he held the receipt out to the demon between two fingers. Crowley plucked it from his hands.

"Ah. Homophobia, is it?" He said loudly. Other patrons began to take notice very quickly. 

"Seems so, dear," Aziraphale replied. He turned to the waiter, already handing him the cash for the meal. "Not your fault, dear boy. Do tell your manager that I think he's foul."

"And here I thought the world was changing," Crowley continued, standing up. Customers elsewhere in the cafe were talking under their breaths, shooting sympathetic glances their way and glares in the direction of the counter. 

"Nevermind, dear," he said, taking his hand as he stood beside him. "There are other cafes in London."

With that, they turned with their heads held high and walked away. They didn't look back. If they had, maybe they'd have noticed that someone had filmed that exchange. Another person had taken photographs. Many of the patrons, younger ones especially, were already furiously typing on their phones. 

They shook off the altercation fairly quickly. Hand in hand, they wandered absent-mindedly in the direction of the park. "Humans are so misguided sometimes," Aziraphale sighed. He wasn't hurt, or angry... Just disappointed. 

"Nothing to do with me, for once," Crowley replied. He broke into a smile when the angel gave him a good-natured shove for that comment. 

They walked along the path. This was not St James Park, but it was just as nice. Smaller, and quieter, and overflowing with plants. Aziraphale reached out with his free hand, brushing his fingers over the foliage. The buds there bloomed under his touch, bringing the pathside alive with reds and yellows as new petals unfurled to meet the sunlight. Crowley smiled, and reached out to the plants on the other side; on his side, the plants bloomed blue and white, contrasting startlingly with the warm colours of the other side. 

He chuckled. "You know, angel," he said, "this type of shrub isn't even supposed to have flowers."

"Isn't it?" He asked innocently, admiring a large red flower, breathing in its scent. 

"Definitely not," the demon affirmed, hardly able to move his eyes from his lovely principality. 

"Well then," Aziraphale said, plucking a yellow flower from a nearby branch, and settling it neatly amongst Crowley's fiery hair. "I think we've made an improvement."

He should have batted the flower away, claiming he had a reputation to uphold. It would have been a lie anyway. "I think you're right," he said, smiling as a flower petal tickled his forehead, gazing over his glasses with more love than he even knew existed. 

Can't believe what I've just seen!! Fell & Cro just got KICKED OUT of a cafe for being gay. #homopobia #Fell&Cro #detectiveboyfriends 

[video attached]

That's disgusting... and illegal. Did anyone tell the police? #Fell&Cro 

BOYCOTT THIS PLACE! We can't stand for this. London deserves better #Fell&Cro #boycot #pride 

What??? Those two are the biggest sweethearts ever. I'm not LGBT but I'm totally behind the boycot. Equality is everyone's responsibility #Fell&Cro #StraightAlly #LGBT #boycot

Sherlock saw the tweets as they came in. He was intrigued to see Fell's fans rush to his defence to quickly. He checked the feed every half hour, and found that the message of the boycot was spreading like wildfire. 

The next day, online magazines were already announcing that the video had gone viral. The London LGBTQ+ community was up in arms. He could hardly blame them. It was illegal. What was also illegal, however, was the large pride flag that had been graffitied across the shop front of the cafe responsible. The establishment closed quickly, and police were questioning the locals. He smirked; his rivals were now inspiring crimes rather than solving them. 

He wondered if this was the clue. Could Moriarty have plotted all this? What was it pointing to? Why hadn't he got in touch directly, rather than making vague allusions and broad public gestures? Was it really connected, or a red herring? A coincidence? 

Too many questions, and they were all the wrong ones to ask. Sherlock had made a foolish assumption, driving back in the Bentley all that time ago. He thought that Crowley had been the one repeating Moriarty's trademark threat. Had he been able to look into the past, into those swirling black waters where details got lost and history was shaped, he would have seen... 

Moriarty had been a frustrated young man, desperate for power, furious as the world crawled by beside him, his genius under-appreciated and hardly used. One starless night, high on the thrill of a stabbing, he rushed into an alley, where the smog was thick and smelt of sulphur. Sirens rushed by. Blood dropped off his blade. His dark eyes peered through the shadowy fog, squinting with uncertainty. He was alone. Satisfied with that fiction, he turned back to the mouth of the alley, half-crouched, waiting to rush back out onto the streets. Behind him, the polluted air began to stir and swirl. A hand reached out, clamping his shoulder. He gave a start, slashing wildly with his knife. Another hand caught his wrist. 

That was when he saw him: a wiry silhouette staring down from lofty heights with slitted eyes, burning amber in the dark. The shadow began to talk, its teeth glinting. His heart still hammered against his eardrums. He heard the word 'demon' in something like a calming voice. Young Jim was not religious, but he was mad, and that was enough. They began to talk calmly. Crowley introduced himself. Then, he made him an offer.

"Listen, kid," the demon purred. "I could cut you a deal. If you promise me not to get your hands too dirty... I could use a human out there causing trouble. It'd save me some time, and believe me, there's not much of it left."

"What's the catch?" The young criminal had asked. The dark, hungry spark in his eyes had already told Crowley that he would accept, no matter what. 

"Your soul," he had replied. He held out a sheet of paper; clean, crisp, infernal. "Sign here. You have fun, play your games, no fear of ever being caught... You'll join us downstairs, when it's time."

"In Hell?"

"Obviously. You've already bought your ticket," he said, gesturing with one long finger at the bloodied knife in his hand. "May as well make the most of it while you're here, right?"

Hesitating for only a moment - and indeed for the last time in his life - he signed the contract. He used his real name, also for the last time. From that moment on, he stopped being Adam Worth, and became James Moriarty. The signature burned on the paper, hissing even as the demon slid it back into his jacket. 

"Pleasure doing business with you," he drawled, straightening up. His lithe figure towered over the young Irishman. "A few words of advice: when you're doing evil, take it easy. Keep it light. Make some jokes. Stay unpredictable, think big. Oh, and make sure you find yourself a decent suit. A hoodie and jeans isn't exactly frightening."

Patting him in the shoulder, he began to saunter past, out of the alley and into the cleaner air on the road. "Wait!" Moriarty called. "What if I break the contract? Get my hands dirty, get it wrong?"

Crowley turned his head, barely enough for one serpentine eye to glance lazily at the boy. "Then I'll burn you," he hissed, sliding a pair of blackout sunglasses onto his face as the fog swirled at his feet, rising up, swallowing his dark countenance as his parting words echoed down the alley. "I'll burn the heart out of you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Crowley is to blame for setting Moriarty up in life. In his defence, he didn't know he was quite *that* crazy...


	8. The 30 Minute Case

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before we get started, I'd like to thank all my readers for the kudos and comments they've given, I read them all and I'm so touched by them. I'm also gonna give a special shoutout to Pochito_Koru, who has taken the time to write some extra long and very flattering comments that always make me smile. You're all awesome, and you all make me so glad I decided to finally put some writing out there.

Aziraphale refused to comment when a journalist appeared at his shop, asking about the cafe boycot and vandalism. He felt a tad embarrassed, and secretly quite proud, that humans had come to his defence. Complete strangers, all taking a stand against hate. It warmed his celestial heart. Crowley, on the other hand, roared with laughter for five minutes straight upon hearing and then recorded a video giving a toast to their fans, with a fine vintage no less, and posted it on the blog. He had, in places, gotten slightly carried away with poetic notions about forbidden love and breaking down barriers, defending one other, and so on and so on... Aziraphale, who had been listening from behind the camera, had even gotten a little dewy-eyed in places. 

"Controversy, angel, I'm telling you," he said, kicking back in an armchair some hours later. He raised a finger off his wine glass to make a point. "It's just free PR."

"How very infernal of you," he said snappily. He may be free, but he still had to take the moral high ground now and then. 

"Relax, Aziraphale. It'll be fine," he said. "Besides, this is good. I've been thinking, we should go out with a bang."

"What?" He said, genuinely baffled. He tilted his head, his arms crossed over his chest. He'd taken off his coat, leaving him in a paltry two layers of clothing, which was about as close to casual dressing as he ever came. 

"When we quit this whole detective thing," he said, gesturing at his laptop. "It'd bring the story to a nice closing point."

"Like what?" He asked cautiously, narrowing his eyes and relaxing into the chair opposite.

"That's just it," he said. "We can't fake our deaths, that'd be awful. And boring. I was thinking, maybe a climactic case might just overwhelm us, and we'll swear off detective work in future. Or we'll find something else. Or - !"

He almost, in his excitement, spilled out all his ideas. He had come up with the last one on a whim. His cheeks burned as he realised how close he'd come to just out and saying it like an idiot.

"Or...?" Aziraphale prompted.

"Or - no, the last one's stupid," he said, shaking his head and taking a mouthful of wine. He had been going to say, 'or we could get engaged and leave London to start fresh'. Firstly, that's a big thing to spring on your significant other out of the blue, especially when you yourself hadn't thought it through at all. Secondly, Aziraphale would never accept. He might not be ready to get married - the sixties echoed in his head; 'you go too fast for me, Crowley' - and he loved his shop too much to ever go anywhere else. That was the end of it. It wasn't time.

"Well, I think it's a splendid idea."

"You do?" He said, then kicked himself as he remembered that Aziraphale hadn't been thinking of the same thing. 

"Yes. A grand finale, it sounds just right," he said, nodding. 

Little did they know, the grand finale was already beginning. In 221B, in the midst of an ugly bickering match, John and Sherlock were about to receive a case. A man in a dark suit rapped on the doorframe, then folded his hands back in front of himself.

"Excuse me, sirs," he said. American accent. Armed. Ex-serviceman, private security. "Your housekeeper let me in. Can I - "

"Not our housekeeper," Sherlock interrupted, as John straightened his posture, trying to soothe his temper and recover his dignity. "You're here on behalf of your employer. He has a case for me; American, obviously, certainly wealthy, judging by the gun in your jacket and the assumption of housekeeper rather than landlady or neighbour. He's likely a diplomat, given that he's not here himself. Busy man. Well, that and we don't get many wealthy Americans in Britain unless they're contractually obligated. Tea? Or would you prefer a coffee?"

The man looked startled, but shook his head. "Uh - no, sir, I only need to deliver a message," he said, clearing his throat. "Thaddeus Dowling sent me. His son is missing."

"Boring. Speak to Scotland Yard," he said, turning his back and making for the kitchen. John sighed, glaring at him.

"Mr Holmes, I was told not to take no for an answer. Money is no object," the guard insisted, following him.

"Heard it all before," he retorted, checking on his microwave human finger experiment. 

"Sherlock," John called, fighting the urge to speak through gritted teeth. "You do realise that if we don't take this, Fell and Crowley will."

"I'm surprised you care, John, given how much you admire Mr Fell," he sneered, not turning around. 

"Stop it. Stop doing that," he snapped, clenching one fist and jabbing a finger at him. "Just take the bloody case, Sherlock. A child is missing, and we need the money. We're behind on rent as it is."

He let out a long groan. "Fine," he said, glancing over his shoulder. "Leave whatever you have on the desk. I'll probably have it solved by nine."

The American looked at the clock. It was 8:09. He looked over incredulously at John. "Yeah, he's just like that," he said bitterly. "No promises about when we'll have it solved."

"Understood," he said, handing him the wad of paper under his arm. "This is what we have. Best of luck, sirs."

John thanked him, and shut the door after him. Sherlock was intent on his experiment. With a sigh, he collapsed into the armchair. No doubt he would snatch the paper out of his hand at 8:59, just to see if he could solve it in less than 60 seconds. Showoff. 

He began with the explanation. The child - Warlock Dowling - had vanished mysteriously from his bedroom in the family villa. He looked at a list of names, of people he might have gone to. A lot of them had phone numbers that were ticked off, confirmed to be of no use. Only four remained: Mr Harrison, Mr Cortese, Brother Francis and Nanny Ashtoreth. With a shrug, he figured he may as well try. The first three numbers were disconnected. He checked the annotations again. They were marked on as 'unlikely to be reachable', so maybe he shouldn't be surprised. On a whim, he tried the last number. 

To his surprise, it rang. It rang... 

Someone picked up. "Hm?" Was all they said. John couldn't tell if it was a man or woman.

"Uh, yes, hello, this is Doctor John Watson speaking. Is this Ms Ashtoreth?" 

There was only quiet breathing for a moment. "What?" Said the voice. It sounded familiar for a moment, but he dismissed it. It was definitely a man.

"I think I've got the wrong number," he said with sigh, about to hang up.

"Wait!" He called. John paused. "Tell me how you got that number, and that name."

He frowned at the phone, then put it back to his ear. "... Crowley?" He said tentatively. 

"Yes, it's me. Now answer the question," he insisted tersely.

"We just got a case, about five minutes ago. An American diplomat's son is missing," he explained. "This number is on the list I was given. Do you know Ashtoreth?"

"I don't just know her," he replied. "I am her."

"... Sorry, I don't think I heard that right."

"You did. I am Ms Ashtoreth, I was Warlock's nanny. It is Warlock Dowling you're looking for, isn't it?" He said. 

"It is. It is, yeah, but I don't..." Watson said, his mind slowing down considerably. 

"I'm putting you on speaker, hang on," he said, and quickly explained everything to Aziraphale as he did so. "Is Sherlock there, John?"

"I am," he said, appearing at the back of the armchair. "Don't say anything, I was listening to the whole conversation. Is it true, that you were a woman in the past?"

"For a while, yeah," he said nonchalantly. "Only around six years, then I went back to being a man."

"Why? Fell, did you know about this?" John spluttered.

"Of course I knew. I was there," the angel replied. 

"And on the subject of why, doctor, I suggest you just stop asking questions about things you'll never understand," Crowley said sharply. He said this mainly because the issue at hand here was not really one of gender (that was simple enough: Crowley didn't have one), but the fact that he'd seen Mary Poppins and thought it would be a good idea. Well, and a little bit because he wanted an excuse to be unpleasant to John. Sherlock was right; Crowley had noticed the way Watson looked at Aziraphale after the Thames case, and he hadn't liked it one bit. 

"Your connections to the boy. What are they?" Sherlock asked, ignoring the tension.

"I was his nanny. I cared for him, taught him life skills, so forth," he said. Fell huffed at that, but passed no comment. 

"Why the name change?"

"I was a woman," he replied. "Figured I needed one."

"You sound awfully nonchalant about the whole thing. You cared for the child for six years, and now you hear he's gone missing, and you're hardly bothered?" Sherlock said scathingly, in a voice that was searching for the cracks in the facade, digging for a lead. 

"There's a very good reason for that, Holmes," he replied. 

"I'd be glad to hear it."

"Because I just got a text from the landlord of my old flat," he said, "telling me that there's a child waiting for a Ms Ashtoreth there. He's come to find his old nanny, it seems. I was just about to fetch him when you called."

John looked at Sherlock. For once, they both felt like they were on the back foot. "Won't he be a bit surprised? That his nanny is a man now?"

"Maybe, but there's one way to find out," he replied. "Shall I drop him by 221B? Seeing as Mr Dowling went to you, we'll let you have this one. Won't we, angel?"

Fell laughed. "Since I'm feeling generous, yes," he said, voice tinged with amusement. 

Crowley and Aziraphale arrived together at his old flat. He'd long since moved out, but he guessed the Dowlings must have kept hold of the old address somewhere. Warlock had probably found it, and decided to rebel like Ashtoreth had always taught him. 

Crowley sauntered into the lobby. The kid was sat there with half a packet of biscuits and backpack. "Warlock," he called, grinning. "Been a while, hasn't it?"

The kid stared at him blankly, his dark and greasy hair hanging in his eyes. "Who are you?"

"What, don't recognise your old nanny?" He said, sticking his hands in his pockets. 

"B - but you're a man! And your accent is different," he protested, scrambling to his feet. He glanced behind him. "Who is that?"

"Hm? Oh, that's my boyfriend," he said, and Aziraphale gave the child a little wave. He couldn't very well claim to be Brother Francis; that would be a bit too far fetched. 

"You're gay... and trans?" He said slowly, staring wide eyed and clearly still struggling to form an opinion. 

"I'd say I'm genderfluid more than anything, but sure," he said, shrugging. He didn't much care for labels. He was a genderless eldritch being from the sulphurous pits of hell, after all, what would he care? Humans didn't even have a label to adequately define what he was.

"We should be getting you back to your parents, young man," Aziraphale chipped in, coming forward to stand closer to Crowley. "They must be terribly worried."

Warlock scowled at him. "How would you know?" He snapped. "You're just some weird fa - "

"Warlock Dowling!" Crowley snapped suddenly, his voice taking on a distinct Scottish twang as he towered over the boy. "I do hope, dear child, that you weren't about to use a slur at my partner."

The boy cowered, clutching his bag to his chest as years of ingrained respect and fierce tellings-off rushed back over him like cold water. "No, nanny Ashtoreth!" He cried instinctively. He was lying, of course he was. 

"It's Crowley now, actually," he said, reverting to his English accent and leaning back. "But good. I suggest you keep your prejudices to yourself in future."

"You've changed..." He muttered, glaring at the floor mutinously.

"All things change. It's better that way," he retorted, then pointed at the door. "Now come on, you're going home. Well, sort of."

221B was quiet. John let the three of them inside, avoiding eye contact with Fell. Following them up the stairs, he silently begged whoever was listening that Sherlock wouldn't say anything. 

Warlock took up a seat on the edge of the sofa, glaring at the floor. Crowley went to him, sitting by his side. "You came to find me for a reason," he said, with surprising softness. "What was it?"

The boy opened his mouth, but hesitated. He shot a look across the room. Realising that they weren't welcome, Fell, Watson and Holmes all vacated the living room. Fell was the last into the kitchen, gently closing the doors. John and Sherlock shared a glance, and the doctor quietly begged him to keep quiet. By the time Fell turned around, a whole conversation had passed between the two men in silence. 

"Crowley is very good with children," he explained in a half-whisper. "If Warlock is having problems, he'll get to the bottom of it."

"The boy's parents will be here soon. Them or their staff," Sherlock said, checking his phone. "Hm. Thirty minutes. That's a new record, as missing persons cases go."

"I don't suppose it will make for very good writing, will it, doctor Watson?" Fell added humorously, nudging John's shoulder.

"S'pose not," he replied, chuckling awkwardly. "And please, it's just John."

Sherlock noticed the way John's body language had become tense. He'd withdrawn from Fell's touch, but his pupils had dilated. It was attraction, certainly, but he was pushing it down. Fell seemed not to have noticed, he noted, with a certain smugness. Clearly he wasn't that good. 

"So, Mr Fell, when did you and Crowley meet?" Sherlock asked out of the blue. He pocketed his phone, putting on his sociable-and-nice face. John seemed to startle slightly at the question.

"We've known one another for almost our whole lives," Fell said, suddenly glowing. He obviously enjoyed talking about his partner. "We wasted so much time dancing around one other in the early days, but I can't imagine living without him now. Looking back, I don't know what I was so afraid of."

"That's very sweet," John said softly, and he genuinely meant it. 

"Hm. Yes. John's not had much luck with dating," Sherlock continued. "What was the last one called? Sally?"

"Sarah," he corrected sharply. He crossed his arms, scowling. "And since when did you make small talk about my love life?"

"Or lack thereof," he shot back. He turned to Fell, who had been examining the ceiling paint and politely not listening to their little spat. "You wouldn't happen to know anyone he might like, would you?"

Fell looked thoughtful for a moment, tapping a finger against his lips. "That rather depends on your type, doctor Watson," he said. Sherlock was intrigued by his insistence on using surnames and titles.

Watson opened his mouth to dismiss the offer entirely, thank him for his concern, and assure him that he could find a girlfriend (yes, girlfriend) all on his own, thank you very much. That is, until Sherlock abruptly talked over him.

"John has no idea what his type is. I'll tell you," he said stridently. He ignored Watson's spluttered protests. "His type is above average height, pale eyes, intelligent, dry sense of humour, preferably someone with strong morals and a sense of empathy. Never understood that last part, myself."

Fell hummed, deep in thought. Sherlock cleared his throat "Oh, one last thing: bookish. He likes the bookish sort."

John blushed furiously. He was going to kill Sherlock after this. It was so humiliating.

Aziraphale, who was intelligent, empathetic, and moral, and stood exactly one inch above average height, with light blue eyes, and was definitely bookish, stood for a moment and thought very hard. "I don't know anyone like that," he said eventually. "Very sorry, doctor Watson, but I shall keep an eye out for you, how about that?"

"Thanks," he muttered, tension pulling his shoulders tight around his neck. 

The kitchen door slid open, and Crowley stepped inside. "Warlock's gone. Bodyguards just turned up to take him home," he said. He slipped his arm around Aziraphale's waist, kissing him on the cheek. 

"What was the matter with the poor child?"

"Small identity crisis, teen angst," he said, shrugging. "Happens to all normal children, so I gather."

There seemed to be some hidden meaning behind that comment. Not even Sherlock could pin exactly what it was, but Fell seemed to understand. "Yes, I would think so," he replied. "Shall we go home, dear? It's getting late and I'm certain that our friends here would like to have their flat to themselves again."

"Why don't you stay?" Sherlock suggested. John gawked at him. "We've just returned a child safely to his parents. Calls for a celebration, doesn't it?"

Crowley and Aziraphale looked at one another, and silently agreed. "All right," Crowley said, shooting a wary glance at Watson. "A few drinks couldn't hurt."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "the grand finale was already beginning" I write, knowing full well I'm only about halfway through the fic


	9. Bad Memories

John opened his eyes, and a strangled groan leaked from his throat. His head pounded. He leaned up slowly, grasping his head as the world tilted. He wondered about Fell's Magic hangover cure, but doubted they had any lavender, or honey (or milk, which was always a rarity in 221B).

He stumbled downstairs, squinting at the light. Sherlock was downstairs already, in his usual dress shirt ensemble. 

"Ah, you're awake," he said, jumping out of his armchair and checking his watch. "Not bad. I was only five minutes out."

Supposing that he'd been trying to guess when he'd wake up, John just grunted and shuffled off to get an aspirin. He heard Sherlock stand up, quietly following him a few steps behind.

"Remember anything?" He asked innocuously. His hands were folded behind his back, and his eyes were calculating, but aprehensive. John turned, frowning at him. 

"From last night?" He said. "You mean apart from you trying to - to humiliate me in front of Fell?"

"I wasn't trying to humiliate you. It was a form of exposure therapy," he said defensively. "If irrational phobias can be cured by exposure to the perceived threatening stimulus, then I thought that irrational sentimentality might be cured in the same way."

John sighed bitterly, shaking his head. It felt stuffed with wool, and ready to burst. "You really have no idea, do you, Sherlock?"

There was a long pause. John took some painkillers. He poured his coffee. Sherlock still hadn't returned to his seat in the living room. 

"John," he said seriously, reiterating his question more firmly this time: "Do you remember anything from last night?"

John froze, glass of water halfway to his mouth. He stared at his friend. "Why?" He said, heart dropping to his feet. "Did - did something happen?"

Sherlock opened his mouth, and avoided eye contact. He took a deep breath and said: "Well...maybe. Nothing important. Wouldn't worry. They'll get over it."

John slammed his glass down onto the counter. A bolt of pain went through his head at the noise. He might deserve it. "Dammit, Sherlock, what did I do?"

"Sit down, John," he sighed. 

His heart fluttering, John went over to his chair and threw himself down in exasperation. "Now tell me, Sherlock."

He sat opposite him, and crossed his legs. He pressed his mouth into a thin line. "You drank a lot, last night," he began, raising his eyebrows at the obvious statement from his own mouth. He wasn't accustomed to this sort of thing. "You couldn't stand, could hardly talk."

"Christ, that's embarrassing," he said, and began to let himself relax. "Is that it?"

"No, it gets worse," he said bluntly. "I'd had a few as well. Eventually, after you almost knocked yourself out on the mantelpiece, Fell offered to put you to bed."

"Oh god."

"Yep," he said, popping the p, and staring blankly at the carpet. "It was taking a while, so Crowley went upstairs to check on you both..."

"Oh no. Sherlock, stop, I think... I think I remember..." John groaned, burying his head in his hands. 

Vague images had begun to swim into his mind. The stairs up to his room; Fell's arm around him, taking his weight. He remembered being dropped unceremoniously onto the bed. There was a friendly, angelic face, smiling drunkenly with a rosy glow on his cheeks. He remembered thinking that he'd never seen anyone so beautiful. He said so. He bloody told him that, to his face. 

Fell had gone red, and tried to brush him off. He'd gone to leave. John had caught his wrist, pulling himself into a sitting position, trying to talk to him. Fell had been reluctant to stay. He'd been polite, trying to gently pry his fingers off of him and tell him to get some sleep. And John had kissed him. He'd gone and kissed him.

Then the door had slammed open. Crowley had seen everything. Even behind his glasses, his glare burned with all the fires of Hell. His face had twisted into a hateful expression. In his furious sneer, John could have sworn he saw fangs. 

His memories ended there. "I kissed him," he mumbled in disbelief.

"Yeah."

"Crowley..." He said, and trailed off. The question was obvious.

"He was furious. He dragged Fell back down the stairs and straight out the door, didn't say a word to me," he said, tapping restlessly on the chair arm. "I deduced what must have happened. Fell's clothes were all present and correct, and there was very little shouting, so it couldn't have been anything more than a kiss."

John stood up unsteadily. "I need to go and apologise," he said.

"I wouldn't."

"Yeah, I know you wouldn't, Sherlock," he snapped, swallowing the lump in his throat. 

"Not what I meant. Crowley may be a criminal. He could be dangerous," he said. "And you made a move on his boyfriend last night, so I suggest you let his temper cool before you go trying to clear things up."

"I'm not waiting around here on the off chance that he's working for Moriarty - which, by the way, I don't believe for a second," he said snappily, grabbing his coat and making for the door. With a sigh, Sherlock followed along. If John was going rushing into danger, so was he. 

AZ Fell & Co's was lifeless and dark. John squinted through the glass, trying to make something out through a gap in the shutters. Sherlock was behind him, hands in the pockets of his greatcoat. He tried the door. Locked. He knocked loudly. No response.

"They're not in," Sherlock said, eyes scanning the upper windows. "The Bentley isn't here, and all the windows are closed and shuttered. No lights on anywhere."

"Yes, for once, Sherlock, I can see that," John snapped. "But where have they gone?"

He opened his mouth to reply, when a young lady stopped in the street. She had a baby in a stroller. "Sorry, are you two looking for Mr Fell and Mr Crowley?" She asked, brushing her windswept hair back into her rough bun. 

"Uh, yeah, actually," John said, smiling strainedly. "Have you seen them?"

"No, but I heard them," she sighed, picking up her baby's toy as it threw it from the pram. "They came back late last night, and started shouting at each other. It was horrible; kept me and Charlie here up till nearly one. They hardly ever argue, so something real bad must have happened."

The two men shared a surprised glance. "What made them stop?" Sherlock asked, stepping forward.

"I'm not sure. I think I heard something breaking, like they had thrown something," she said, cringing slightly. "I would have gone over and asked them to be quieter. I've done it before if they've been a bit rowdy in the past, and they were always fine with it, but this time... I was a bit frightened, to be honest. Mr Crowley took off afterwards, I don't know where. I just heard the car."

"And Mr Fell?" John pressed.

"No idea. I guess he must still be inside," she said, nodding at the bookshop. "Doesn't look like he's getting out of bed today, though. I can hardly blame him. That poor man... I hope they're both okay. They're such a lovely couple, you know."

With that, she was on her way again. John felt sick. "Sherlock... You don't think...?" He said nervously, glancing at the darkened shop. 

The detective glanced up and down the street suspiciously, and took a set of lock picks from his pocket. "Let's see, shall we?" He said.

Thanks to Sherlock's skill, they were in the shop in moments, and without anyone seeing. It was a slow day for foot traffic in Soho, apparently. The bookshelves towered over them like monoliths in the dark. Sherlock led the way, taking a pocket torch out of his coat. The thin beam of light danced over the clutter. Remembering the way to the back room, they crept forward. John kept his hand on his gun.

The living room was as cosy as before, but it felt hollow now, without the warm lamplight to breathe life into it. He glanced around. "Don't forget, there might be a snake in here somewhere," John whispered.

Sherlock hummed, pointed a finger along the line of the torchlight. Beneath the white glare, a vase was in pieces. Large shards of pointed porcelain littered the floor. Something dark clung to its surface... 

"Blood," he said, his deep voice reverberating through the quiet room. John felt a cold shudder run down his spine. 

He swept the light across the room, noticing more blood on the bannister at the foot of the stairs. Gesturing for John to follow, he began to ascend. The gun remained in its holster, waiting. Neither of them noticed the roar of a familiar engine outside; it was lost among the other distant sounds of traffic. 

Slowly, they stepped onto the landing. The doors on either side of them were all shut, and the crimson wallpaper constricted around them, making the corridor feel tighter than it was in the gloom. A cold draft swept down across the floor. The detective's inquisitive gaze noted that the second door on their right was slightly ajar. He nudged Watson, nodding toward it, Tentatively, they crept forwards. 

Downstairs, a door clicked open, almost silently. 

Sherlock squinted at the doorframe. He couldn't make out anything in the room beyond. There was no light bleeding out from inside; it was just as dark and quiet as the rest of the building. He shone the light on the floor, checking for any trip wires or loose floorboards. He didn't know what was waiting for them inside. It could be anything. He kept his breathing even, and steeled himself.

Beneath them, a pair of snakeskin boots mounted the stairs.

Sherlock reached out to the door, nudging it. It creaked softly. John's breathing hitched, and he gripped his gun tighter, but didn't draw it. The sliver of light in Sherlock's hand tracked its way across the floor, up the side of a bed frame... It found a figure on the bed. The back of Fell's head was unmistakable: white-blond, fluffy, leading down into his habitual choice of clothing. A few moments passed. They half expected him to sit up, rub his eyes and ask what was going on. He didn't. He was perfectly still, as if he was just a marble statue that had been laid on its side upon the mattress. Sherlock narrowed his eyes, about to enter the room.

The main light clicked on. He jumped back from the threshold in shock, whirling around to face the other way. John had drawn his gun. Adrenaline bled into every nerve. They stood stock still for a moment, face to face with Crowley.

"What on earth," he drawled quietly, the undertone in his voice betraying his anger, "are you two doing here?"

"We're - we were worried," John stuttered, hurriedly putting away his gun. Both men backed up nervously as Crowley strode toward them. He stopped at the door they had been about to enter. His long fingers curled around the bedroom doorknob, and pulled the door shut, obscuring Fell from view. 

"He's sleeping," he said coldly. He stared at them both, as if daring them to challenge him. "Get out. You're not welcome here."

"I'm really sorry, Crowley, I - " John began.

"You clearly weren't listening. I said, get out," he interrupted.

The shop door slammed at their backs with an air of finality. Wordlessly, they made for the road, looking out for a cab. Sherlock's shoulders were tense, and his mind was mottled with questions already. John glanced over his shoulder at the blind eyes of the bookshop. 

"Are they going to be okay, do you think?" He asked forlornly.

"Crowley might be," he responded tautly, "if you ignore the fact that his boyfriend is dead."

"What?" John exclaimed, his face going sheet white. 

"He wasn't breathing*, John. Not that I could see," he said sombrely as can pulled up in front of them.

"Well - we have to go back! Call the police!" He yelled as his friend climbed into the cab. "We can't just do nothing, Sherlock!"

"We're not. We're going directly to Scotland Yard to fetch Lestrade, right now," he replied. "Now get in, we're wasting time."

*The reader may know that whether or not an angel is breathing is not related to their living/dead status. Aziraphale was not breathing because he was very tired, and had forgotten. He is not dead at all, just having a nice long nap. What had really happened the night previous was this: 

Crowley had indeed dragged Aziraphale home in a rage. He had been furious that Watson had dared to kiss his angel, and gotten away with it. He was angry at himself, mostly for failing to give the doctor the black eye he so dearly deserved, but he was also afraid. Every insecurity in his body was still trying to tell him that Aziraphale deserved better than a demon. He was terrified that something as small as a kiss might be enough to tempt him away, not because Aziraphale was weak to temptation, but because Crowley himself was fundamentally undesirable (neither of which were true). None of this occurred to Aziraphale, however. He was angry that Crowley had been so rude at 221B, and that the demon seemed to think that this even mattered at all. It was a mess of miscommunication and hurt and fear, which led to a broken vase and an angry late-night drive to the coast. 

After Crowley left, Aziraphale (still tipsy) had tried to clean up the broken pieces of his vase, forgetting that he could have used a miracle. In the process, he cut his palm quite deeply. This was the final straw; he was very tried, and rather upset, and decided that he would just not bother fixing anything - his hand included - until he had sobered up the next morning. Or week. Or whenever he next woke up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the angst begins... but don't worry, there will still be humour in future chapters


	10. Two Sides Of The Same Coin

Aziraphale woke up to the sensation of someone playing with his hair. The smell of his favourite tea made him open his eyes. He cringed at the sight of his hand, still slashed open, and the large bloodstain on the bed. He turned his head, seeing Crowley beside him, his fingers tangled in his white curls. His sunglasses were tucked into his breast pocket.

"I'm so sorry, angel," he murmured, his yellow eyes saying so much more than he ever could. 

"Whatever for?" He asked, without thinking, sitting up.

"Wh - w - uh - the... Last night," he said, shaking his head to clear the stutter. "I overreacted."

"Maybe, but so did I," he replied, pressing a feather-light kiss to his lips. Crowley smiled in relief, and with a wave of his hand, the wound on Aziraphale's palm knitted itself neatly closed. 

"John and Sherlock were here a second ago. They broke in," he said, his expression souring slightly. "They almost came in and disturbed you."

"They probably meant well," he said forgivingly. He gave a long sigh. "For as much as I love humans... They don't make it easy, do they?"

He snorted. "You can say that again. I could've killed Watson last night..."

"He was drunk, my dear. I didn't like it either, but there's no use getting hung up on it," he said. He took his hand, running his fingers over his skin lovingly. 

"Maybe we should get away for a while," the demon said suddenly. "Only for a week or two. We could rent a place in Tadfield, or somewhere else, and just... be alone. Away from everyone, and everything, unless we want to be. Together."

The angel smiled a blessed, warm smile. "Like our very own Alpha Centauri," he said dreamily. 

"Exactly," he said, stealing a quick kiss. "Let's go. Right now."

"Now?" He echoed. "But - but the broken vase, the sheets, the - "

"Forget all that. Who cares? We'll miracle everything better when we get back," he said, pulling him to his feet. "Let's just go as we are. The Bentley can take us anywhere. No one'll even notice us."

Aziraphale wrestled with himself internally. He really shouldn't just up and leave with no warning... But then he looked at Crowley. His darling Crowley, his beautiful demon, with eyes so full of hope and love and none of the cold light of heaven. How could he say no?

Sherlock burst into Lestrade's office. His coat billowed behind him, and John marched with a purpose in his wake. 

"Hey! You can't just come rushing in here whenever you like, you know," Lestrade protested through a mouthful of donut. "I could've been in a meeting!"

"Yes but you're not," Sherlock retorted, leaning over the desk with burning intensity. "I'm here to report a murder. That is your division, isn't it, inspector?"

He swallowed the mouthful. "Yeah. What murder? Who? Where?" He said, still slightly caught off-guard. 

"Mr Fell, in his bookshop in Soho," he replied concisely. Lestrade gawked. He glanced briefly at John, as if to confirm that this wasn't some joke. Background office sounds filled the silence.

"Mr Fell? He's dead?" He exclaimed finally. 

"Yes, that is what being murdered means, inspector, but I was rather hoping you'd be more proactive about it," the detective snapped, straightening himself out to his full height. 

"How do you know it was murder? Where's the body?" He asked, snatching his coat from the back of his chair.

"The body is in his bedroom on the top floor of his shop. I saw it only for a moment, but he was definitely dead," he explained quickly, following the inspector closely as they rushed through the halls.

"Definitely?" He said.

"Yes, he wasn't breathing," he said, slightly irritated. 

"Then why was it murder, Sherlock?" He repeated, stopping in the middle of the corridor. "I need to know you're not just leading me on some sort of goose chase because of a freak accident."

"A neighbour heard a violent domestic dispute the night before, and Crowley caught me and John when we broke into the shop, and all but chased us away from the crime scene before we could get a proper look," he said, his words spilling out rapidly in the hopes of keeping things moving.

"You - are you seriously telling me that Crowley murdered his boyfriend?" He said, a smile forming on his face from pure nervous energy and disbelief. "You're joking."

"I'm not, and he is at the shop as we speak," he continued ruthlessly, jabbing a finger down toward the main doors. "He can't move the body easily in daylight. Right now is your best chance at catching him red handed, at the scene of the crime, before he vanishes for good."

"And you think he can?"

Sherlock stepped into Lestrade's space, dropping his voice low. "If he has the kind of criminal connections that I suspect he does, then yes, he can," he said. "And once he's gone, who knows how long before he kills again?"

It took only a few minutes to scramble a team of armed officers. Sirens screamed through the streets, distorting the relative peace of mid-afternoon. John hadn't said a word since they saw the body. No one pressed him. 

Police officers surrounded the bookshop, evacuating any nearby pedestrians. On Sherlock's word, Crowley was being treated as a formidable criminal, who probably wouldn't go down easy. He noticed immediately that the Bentley was nowhere to be seen on the street. He clenched his jaw, wondering if he had fled already. 

He set his eyes on Lestrade. The inspector approached the door, outfitted with a stab-proof vest. He knocked, calling 'police, open up', loudly. He did this twice, then tried the door. Locked, of course, but the building was so old that they didn't need the battering ram to force it open. It was a miracle (literally) that the place had never been robbed before. 

Personnel flooded the shop. A confusion of shouting and warnings rang out. Lestrade led the charge, into the back room. They flicked on the main lights as they went. His eyes fell on the porcelain shards on the floor. He approached them, looking without disturbing them. There was one big shard with most of the blood; it could have been used as a stabbing weapon. The rest of the blood had fallen onto the other shards as a result of the first wound, it appeared. More blood was smeared on the bannister, and dripped on the floor. His heart dropped. He hadn't honestly believed it, that Crowley would do anything to hurt Fell. He'd always seemed so smitten. But then... Maybe in the end, that had been the problem. Swallowing hard, he took the stairs.

On the way here, Sherlock told him exactly what room the body would be in. First, he had to clear the others, making sure that Crowley wasn't lying in wait. Finally, there was one room left. With a deep breath, knowing that their murderer must be inside with the body, he kicked open the door. 

Empty. He faltered for a moment. He scanned the room, behind the door, under the bed, in the closet... There was nowhere else to hide. There was a considerable bloodstain on the bed, beside a slight dip where up until recently, a considerable weight must have been lying. 

"All clear," he said into his radio, unable to take his eyes off the bed. "No sign of Crowley, or Fell, but... cordon the place off. This is a crime scene."

Miles away, outside of London, a classic black Bentley raced down the road. For once, Aziraphale wasn't nagging Crowley about his driving. He had rolled the tinted window down once they got into the countryside, and was enjoying the sunshine and the rush of the air on his face. The rolling hills were gorgeous, with their crop swaying in the wind like the ripple of ocean waves to the shores of Hawthorne hedgerows. 

"Where are we going, Crowley?" He asked, relaxed, looking over his shoulder.

"Well, a cottage by the coast has just miraculously become available," he said airily, one hand on the wheel. "Nice country garden, king size bed, enormous luxury bathtub, only a short walk to the beach... The works. Fancy it?"

"It sounds delightful, dear."

"What do you mean, not there?" Sherlock said sharply after Lestrade emerged from the shop.

"I mean, he's not there. There was a dip in the bed, and a bloodstain, but no body," he repeated. He looked between John and Sherlock. "Look, are you sure he was dead, not just wounded?"

"Certain. He wasn't breathing, Lestrade," Sherlock insisted.

"It's true. I saw it as well," John said quietly. He wanted to be wrong. He wanted to think that Fell had come to, and fled, maybe through the window. He could be out there in London; bleeding, scared, betrayed, but alive. 

There was a beat of silence. "Are you all right?"

"Of course he's not. He blames himself for Fell's death because he sent Crowley into the jealous rage that drove him to murder," Sherlock analysed quickly and coldly. "Oh, didn't I mention? Last night, John ki - "

"Sherlock," John spoke up, choked and hurt. He glanced around at the gathering crowd of spectators and policemen. "Not here. Please."

For once in his life, Sherlock fell silent. He nodded, and thought about reaching out to him, but decided against it. Empathy didn't suit him. It would have just been odd. 

Lestrade took a deep breath. "Well, all right then, we'll need both of you to give your statements at the station," he said. "And until we find the body and can confirm the death, we'll be treating this as a disappearance, not a murder."

Crowley had outdone himself. The cottage was a long way off the main road, and utterly gorgeous; blossoming vines crept up the white plaster on the exterior, and white blooms clustered under the eaves of the slate roof. There was a porch, lit by old-fashioned lanterns, which he had known Aziraphale would love. As they made their way down the garden path, they saw an outdoor seating area for two, nestled in an intimate alcove of willow and flowering shrubs. 

The interior was spacious, but cosy. The kitchen was set on a terracotta floor, the cabinets painted a harmonious array of cool colours with white countertops. Everywhere you went, quaint wooden beams criss-crossed the ceiling. The living room had two armchairs facing the fire: one was a velvety red recliner, with a high back and matching footstool, and the other was warm brown built for posture, with a tartan blanket thrown over the back. At that point, Aziraphale turned to Crowley.

"And you just found this place today, did you?" He asked incredulously, gesturing at the two chairs that seemed just a little too perfectly attuned to their tastes to be a coincidence.

"Weeeell," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and smiling mischievously. "I may have tweaked it a bit before we arrived."

"You wily serpent, you," he said, eyes twinkling in the warmth of love and lamplight. 

Aziraphale took his hand and dragged him up the stairs. The bedroom's floor space was mostly taken up by the plush vastness of the bed. There was a pine dresser, two bedside tables and a freestanding wardrobe, but the two entities paid none of that any mind as the demon found himself pulled down onto the sheets. There were still more rooms to see, but the house tour stopped there, for reasons that the reader can speculate on themselves. 

John's statement had felt more like a confession. Only Lestrade and Donovan interviewed him, with pity behind their eyes as he stumbled through the story. He started right from the Thames drownings, through to when they were given the Warlock Dowling case. More than once, words caught in his throat, refusing to go any further. They didn't press him too hard when that happened.

"I didn't - I wasn't in love with him. I- I'm not even g- ," he whispered hoarsely, staring at his hands on the table. His words came out breathy and disjointed. He couldn't bring himself to deny it so blatantly anymore. "I was just - I just felt - "

He couldn't continue. "Curious?" Donovan guessed tentatively.

He cleared his throat, shaking his head. "No. No, it wasn't that," he said, clinging desperately to his dignity. "I was drunk. I liked him, and I... I didn't think. I didn't know that Crowley was - that he - oh god..."

He broke off again, pressing a hand over his mouth. How long had Crowley stood at the door, watching? What had he said, when he took Fell away? Who did he blame? How could bring himself to lay a hand on the loving, cherubic Mr Fell? Perhaps John was putting Aziraphale on a pedestal, now he was 'gone'. Perhaps. 

"Take your time, John," Lestrade said gently. "Do you need anything? Water?"

He shook his head. "No. I'm fine," he said, putting both fists down on the table. "Greg, do you - do you know his name?"

"What?" He said, sharing a glance with Donovan.

"His name, Fell's first name," he reiterated. He was getting off topic, but he had to know. A quiet voice in his mind said something about closure. "I asked him once, but he wouldn't tell me. He would only tell me that his middle name was Zira."

"I - I don't think we actually do know his name," Donovan said, as if just realising this herself, flicking through a few sheets of paper. "All his records just use his initials, or AZ Fell."

"That's weird," said Lestrade. "Come to think of it... We don't know Crowley's full name, either."

"No, we do. Says here that's it's Anthony J Crowley," she corrected.

"What, Crowley's his surname?" Lestrade said, surprised. "But even Fell called him that."

"He had another name, too," John chipped in. "When he was a woman, he went by Ms Ashtoreth."

"And his previous flat in Mayfair was registered in the name of AJ Cowlley," said Donovan. 

Lestrade groaned, dragging his hands across his face. "Right. So we don't actually know who Crowley is," he summarised. "We need to find his paper trail, if he has one. It might lead us back to his original identity."

"Can I help?" John asked hopefully. "This is my fault, Greg. I need to make it right... for him."

Lestrade gave him a sympathetic look, standing from his chair. "I'm sorry, John, but you're a witness," he said. "I can't let you in on this one. But we'll catch the bastard, okay? If he really has played us all for fools, we'll get him. Promise."


	11. The Ghost of London

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graphic violence ahead, be warned

Tea sloshed over the side of John's mug. He gave a weak cry of surprise, and quickly replaced it in the saucer. His mind had been wandering again. Sherlock hadn't come back from Scotland Yard yet. No doubt he was arguing with Lestrade over whether or not he should be allowed to work the case. As if to answer his thoughts, the door slammed open. He gave a start as Sherlock stormed in.

"Ridiculous, John!" He shouted. "Conflict of interest, I don't think so... When have I ever let my emotions get the better of me at work?"

He didn't respond. He had clasped his hands tightly in his lap, taking slow breaths in and out. He could feel Sherlock's pale eyes flicker over him, analysing everything. He never usually minded. Today, however, he already felt stripped down and wrung out. Anything he'd tried to keep down, keep suppressed... It was out. People knew. How could he look Lestrade in the eye? How could he live with himself, knowing what had happened to Fell just because he couldn't control himself? How could he sleep at night, with the thought of Crowley out there somewhere, driving around scot free in that bloody Bentley? Finally, he raised his eyes to look at his friend. He hadn't moved or spoken; he was waiting. Waiting for John, for once. It almost felt like he'd been expecting this for some time, or something like it. 

"Ideas?" John said. His voice was breathy, with none of its usual armour. He needed something to do, something tangible. He couldn't just sit here waiting with the pit in his stomach opening wider and wider. 

"A few, yes," Sherlock replied, a smile twitching onto his face which John couldn't help but replicate. But then, Sherlock had always known what might make his friend smile. 

"Well go on, then. Tea's getting cold, we haven't got all night."

"Firstly, the murder weapon was almost certainly downstairs. Probably a shard of the vase. It was broken into large pieces, and the walls were thick enough to withstand the force of stabbing," he said, pacing back and forth around the living room. John watched him, anchoring himself with the familiar sight. "Impossible to guess where the stab wound might have been without seeing the blood on the bed, but we know it must have been on his front. That narrows it down. There wasn't enough blood for us to smell it, so it was unlikely that Crowley severed any arteries. So, he probably didn't bleed out. Maybe he punctured a lung, or maybe it wasn't the stab wound that killed him at all. That wound may have been intended to incapacitate, while the real murder was carried out through asphyxiation."

"Which is more likely?" John rasped, clenching and unclenching his hands. 

"Hm. Can't tell without the body. Didn't see any bruising on the neck, it should have been visible from the back, but strangling isn't the only way to asphyxiate. Could have been done with a pillow, but that implies they were already in the bed, when the bulk of the blood was clearly downstairs. I'm no expert, but I doubt even Crowley is charming enough to seduce a man, having just stabbed him," he said, pausing by the window to stare vacantly into the street below.

"Couldn't he have forced Fell upstairs, strangled him there?" John asked. His voice was returning to him, steadily. It still made his gut clench to say that name.

"Unlikely. You remember what he did to Mr Mariot, it's very unlikely that Crowley could win a fight with Fell," he said dismissively. "He needed to incapacitate him first, or he would never have succeeded. He might have used a sofa cushion, but those are small, harder to keep in place. Fell would have been struggling. He's strong. Killing him wouldn't have been easy."

John pushed himself out of his armchair. He had to move. He wandered aimlessly into the kitchen, and began making tea out of habit. He listened to Sherlock continue his morbid rambling. 

"More likely that he stabbed him, and Fell fled. He would have known that his life was in danger, if Crowley had snapped," he said, visualising the scene. 

The bookshop's back room spread out in front of his eyes. Crowley stood over the shattered remained of the vase, his weapon in hand, slick with blood. Fell stumbled backwards, blood spreading out from his wounded lower chest. He clutched at it, then turned and fled. He reached the bottom of the stairs, and the scene froze. He focused on where Fell's hand rested against the bannister, smearing blood, on the pattern of blood speckles on the floor. It would fit. After a moment, the scene resumed. Crowley gave chase, hot on his heels. He'd dropped the shard. Sherlock's mind conjured the murderous snarl on his face with shocking detail. He pictured him without his glasses; instinctively, he coloured his eyes an unnervingly bright, verdant colour. A real green-eyed monster; it made a poetic sort of sense. 

Next, the bedroom. Why would Fell have gone there? Crowley had been blocking his path into the shop. He could understand why he hadn't tried to run past him; it would only have ended with another stab wound, fatal this time. He recalled the image of Fell's body. He hadn't been wearing his white coat. Where was it? Had he seen it in the room? Downstairs? In the shop? No. Must have been in the bedroom, it was the only place that made sense. Fell was trying to find it. He returned to the sequence of events in his head, picturing it as vividly as if he was watching the real thing. 

Fell burst into his bedroom, wounded. He was in pain. His mind would have been slower, panicked, disjointed. If the coat had been near the door, he might have reached it in time to grab his phone. It was the only thing left that would save him now. But there had been no call, no cry for help. His body had been left undiscovered for at least 9 hours. So, what had happened in the bedroom? 

The coat must have been across the room. Fell was probably delirious by now. Blood would have been pouring out of him faster and faster as his heart rate soared. He may have tried to go over the top of the bed. A fatal mistake; it slowed him down, long enough for two spindly, long-fingered hands to clamp around his shoulders, forcing him down onto the bed. He held him down by the throat - no, not the throat, or there would have been visible bruising - by the chest while his other hand reached for the pillow. As soon as he clamped it down onto Fell's face, that was the end. With Crowley's weight anchoring him to the mattress, and a wound now spilling blood onto the bed, Fell was done for. All that remained was for Crowley to turn the limp body on its side, probably trying to hide the bloodstain, and flee the scene until morning. 

"Why wait?" He murmured to himself. John looked up from the armchair. He'd sat back down, knowing that Sherlock had retreated into his own head, for whatever reason. He could only be patient. 

"What?"

"Crowley didn't move the body until it was daylight. Why would he wait?" He said, glaring at the carpet as if it was hiding the answers. "He had the perfect opportunity to hide the body under the cover of darkness, immediately after the murder. Or, he could have been halfway across the country by the time anyone found it. Why leave the scene only to return later?"

"Maybe he realised what he'd done," John muttered darkly, ignoring the way the hot tea burned his hand through the porcelain. 

"No. No, that's not it... Whatever he did, there must have been a reason," he insisted. 

Aziraphale lay on his back, gasping for air, his hands still grasping the sheets. Crowley fell down beside him, nuzzling close and equally as breathless. "Well?" The demon purred, running his fingers over the marks he'd left along the angel's collarbone. 

"I love you," Aziraphale panted, pulling his demon closer. 

"I'll take that to mean I did well," he replied snidely, kissing him. 

"You always do," he said, letting his head fall back onto the pillow. 

After a quarter of an hour or so, they came to the conclusion that there was plenty of daylight left. As comfortable as they were in bed, there was plenty more to see before dark. They dragged themselves from the warm sheets, miracling everything to exactly the way it had been before they had their fun. 

Dressed in a half-buttoned shirt and his usual trousers, Aziraphale wandered into the garden. Crowley followed along. He'd miracled some comfortable, scruffy clothes for himself. That was the beauty of being occult; no clothes shopping, no packing for holidays. The demon sat beside Aziraphale, amongst the foliage of the willow alcove. They joined hands over the table, and two iced drinks appeared beside them. A cool breeze, carrying salt and freshness, blew across the garden. 

"I love you, angel," Crowley said suddenly. "I forgot to say it back, upstairs."

"I don't need to hear you say it to know that it's true," he replied sagely, squeezing his hand. 

"I wasted six thousand years not saying it. I'll be damned - and yeah, before you say anything, I know I am already, it's just a saying - if I let another day go by without letting you know," he said. He meant every word. He stared at Aziraphale with such gentle desperation that he hoped he'd know that. 

"We have plenty of time to make up for what we lost," he said quietly. "I'm not going anywhere. Neither are you."

He cracked a small smile. "No need to go quite so fast anymore, is there?"

"Oh, I don't know about that," he replied with a sly wink. "I rather think I might finally have caught up with you."

Lestrade was tearing his hair out. Crowley had more names than he'd thought. On top of Ashtoreth, AJ Cowlley, and Anthony J Crowley, there were others. His car was registered in the name of S. O'Eden, his credit card was under J. Gardener, and all his magazine subscriptions were made out to A. Sinner. It was impossible to know where to start. Every single one of his aliases appeared to be pulled right from thin air; he couldn't find any birth records from any of them. Many of them were variations on AJ Crowley, but it didn't seem to mean anything. He'd tried to trace Crowley's phone, but found nothing. He must have turned it off, he thought. In actuality, ever since the 'mysterious' communications problems while delivering Adam to the Chattering Order, Crowley had given up on human mobile networks, and ran his own phone on pure demonic energy. It never failed. It was also, incidentally, completely untraceable by any human methods. He had never even considered that someone might try to track him. 

"The man's a ghost," Lestrade complained to Anderson at the coffee machine.

"Something like that..." The forensics guy muttered.

"What?" He said, exasperated and very near the end of his tether. 

"Not a ghost. Vampire," Anderson said with all the certainty of a madman.

"Oh, not this again..."

"It's true. We should have seen it coming," he continued knowingly, then burned his mouth on his coffee. After a few curses, he continued. "He's been planning to take Fell out for months. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen. He thought I was insane."

"I wonder why," Lestrade said dryly, rolling his eyes and making his way back into his office. Between Anderson's crazed ramblings and the most unexpected, uncharacteristic domestic murder he'd ever seen, he could've sworn the world was going mad.

His office was a grey and featureless room. He really ought to decorate a bit, add in some colour... He briefly entertained a pride flag of some kind, thinking of trying to show some solidarity for John. It might help lift his spirits. He shook his head a moment later, deciding that actually, the doctor probably wouldn't like anyone bringing it up. It didn't matter much, anyway, having a grey office. He always seemed to be out in the field, chasing after suspects or, worse, trying to keep the youngest Holmes brother under control. His phone buzzed as he sat down. With a groan, he looked at it. 

Find where Crowley went, approx 12:00 - 10:00am, night of the murder - SH

He texted back: WHY? 

Why leave the scene only to come back? - SH

Grumbling, Lestrade turned to his computer, preparing to do as he was told. He couldn't help but feel like he wasn't really in charge around here anymore. But, witness or not, Sherlock was unlikely to stay out of this. Not only because it was an interesting case, but because it seemed important to John. The doctor had liked Fell, and Lestrade had always privately suspected he might be a bit jealous of what Crowley had with him. Sherlock would never admit it, but Lestrade knew he was solving this for Watson's sake. It was as close to a romantic gesture as a Holmes could get. He phone vibrated again. Scowling, he looked, and couldn't suppress a huff of amused disbelief.

John says hi - SH

There were no cameras within 200 metres of AZ Fell & Co. There were none on the walls, nor even in the other shop fronts. It was a glaring blindspot. It appeared as if the 21st century had just politely sidestepped this little patch of London. Unable to start from the beginning, the first place that Lestrade was able to pick up a trace of the Bentley was at 12:56 at night, waiting at some traffic lights. It wasn't too far from the shop, and he followed the car through the traffic cameras of the city until it left altogether. He didn't return until half nine the next morning, at which time he drove back through the streets recklessly, and eventually vanished again into the blindspot in Soho. 

After a little while, the car reappeared. It was driving erratically, like it had been before, and tore across London quicker than it had any right to. The windows were dark, impossible to see through from the camera feed. He lost track of the Bentley when it left London, venturing beyond into the countryside. A little more investigating told him that Crowley must have avoided all main roads, because the distinctive classic was nowhere to be found on any more traffic cams. He'd fled into the backroads, where only the livestock were there to keep watch. He leaned back into his seat, rubbing his eyes. Sherlock was right. Crowley could, and had, vanished into thin air. Now only one question remained, one that haunted him and sent cold dread seeping down his back: how long before he kills again? 

It was late. He'd spent a long time combing through footage, with nothing to show for it. Out of options, he called Sherlock. He was out of his depth. 

"Sherlock, I've checked the feeds. He left London, and went home in the morning, then fled North back out of the city," he said, his chair creaking as he let his full weight slump back. "What now?"

He didn't reply for a moment. "What about the security footage outside the shop?"

"There is none. There's no CCTV anywhere on the whole street," he said. "And Crowley has something like six or seven names, all of them false, far as I can tell. I lost him the minute he got clear of London."

"I told you that would happen," he said. "Any ideas where he hid the body?"

"No. He could have taken it in the car," he suggested. 

"Unlikely. He may have hidden it in the house," he said. "But he didn't have enough time to hide it well, unless this was premeditated, which looks improbable given the motive."

Lestrade sighed, taking a swig of cold coffee. He was itching to smoke. "So you still think it was jealousy, then?"

"You've seen them together. Crowley's always been possessive, never letting anyone else get too close. Where Fell went, he followed," he pointed out. There was a certain sobriety beneath his cool, detached demeanour. "His multiplicity of names seems to suggest a criminal lifestyle. It wouldn't take much to push him to murder."

"But then why get involved with Fell at all, then?"

"He may not have been conventionally attractive, but he managed to catch the attention of at least two bloggers. Maybe it's his cologne," he quipped dryly. 

"Very funny, Sherlock, but I meant with the detective side of things," he said. He adjusted his position, glancing out his office window to check no one was loitering about. "If he's a criminal, why go around solving crimes? Getting in the spotlight?"

"Hard to tell. Some people just can't seem to get enough attention, can they?" He replied. The irony simmered in the air for a moment. Sherlock cleared his throat. "I count it as a peculiarity of the case. Have you issued a warrant for his arrest?"

"Not yet."

"Good. If you start flaunting that you're onto him, he'll bolt even further," he said. "Out of the country, perhaps."

"How do you know he hasn't already?" Lestrade challenged, getting up to close his door. Paranoia was getting to him. He didn't want Donovan on his back for this.

"He loves his car. He won't leave it behind if he can help it. He could have taken a rental under a false identity and abandoned it later, but no. He's taken his Bentley with him even now, when he's just committed murder, despite the fact that it's distinctive. But you can't take cars with you on commercial airlines, and ferries make for slow getaway vehicles, so he's likely to stay in the country and lie low if he can," he said quickly. "He might risk crossing the border into Scotland or Wales, but that's likely to involve main roads, which he's avoiding. So, he's staying in England, somewhere rural, where security cameras aren't all that common."

"Right," he said, frantically noting that down. "And why shouldn't I issue a warrant again?"

"Because Crowley already has a myriad of false identities. He probably has more we don't know about, just in case he needs to start fresh somewhere else, if something like this were to happen. Given that he already dyes his hair and has always hidden his eyes, it would be very easy for him to alter his appearance, and slip by undetected," he explained. He glanced over his shoulder in 221B; John had fallen asleep hours ago, and he was hoping he wouldn't wake him. "He probably hasn't fled yet, but he can. He doesn't know for certain that we're aware Fell's dead. The moment we give that away, he has a reason to emigrate."

"So we conduct our manhunt behind closed doors, hoping we'll find him before he gets suspicious," Lestrade surmised. "That's risky, Sherlock. If we don't catch him, and he hurts someone else... people are gonna ask why I didn't make the public aware."

"I warned you once that he would vanish quickly, and he did. I was right," he shot back. "Are you really going to risk ignoring my advice? Because I think, even if you do manage to back him into a corner, even more people will die."

"Are you just trying to scare me into doing what you say now?" He said, fighting the urge to raise his voice. He didn't want any of his colleagues poking around to see what all the fuss was about. 

"No. Crowley is resourceful, and quick, and ruthless. He just murdered the man he loves because of one little peck on the lips from someone else. And have you seen the way he drives?" He said. "He has a disregard for life*. He doesn't think twice about throwing it away. Try to box him in, and mark my words, he will take hostages, and they will die."

"Are we talking about the same bloke here?" Lestrade scoffed in disbelief. This couldn't be real. "All right, Crowley's a bastard, but you're making out like... like he gets off on this. He's just man, Sherlock. A bad man, but still a man."

"No. He's not a man, he's a serpent," Sherlock bit back, not knowing just how right he was. "He captures his prey, and slowly, slowly, he tightens his hold, encircling them, constricting them until they know nothing but his touch. And then... He swallows them whole, as if there was never anyone there to begin with."

There was a beat of silence. Lestrade's sighed. "You really are a proper drama queen, aren't you?" He huffed. "But fine, I'll hold off on the arrest warrant, but only for a few days. I'm giving you time, here, Sherlock, so don't let me down."

"Does this mean you're letting me work the case?" He said hopefully.

"Not in any official capacity. I'll just... drip-feed you the details, all right?" He said, dropping voice low. "I'll drop by tomorrow night."

"Looking forward to it."

\--------- 

*Wrong! 


	12. Evidence From The Scene

Lestrade was true to his word. He arrived at Baker Street with a memory stick, crammed with crime scene photographs and files. He's also brought along a couple of items from the house, which he'd taken away on the pretence of 'working from home'. 

He laid out everything he had on the table. "Right, we've got photos of the scene on this," he said, holding up the USB stick. "And I also got my hands on a photo album scrapbook thing that Fell was keeping, and an old camcorder. I had a flick through the videos on there, they're fairly recent, looking at the time stamps. I haven't watched any yet."

"Let's start with the the album, shall we?" Sherlock said, picking up the hefty book. John came over, his slippers shuffling over the carpet, and watched silently over his shoulder. He jumped slightly as the album got dumped in his arms. Giving Sherlock a sharp glance, which went unnoticed, he flicked it open. There was a note tucked into the front, the handwriting barely legible and written in a fountain pen. He picked it out, reading it aloud.

"Dearest friend reading this: welcome to our album of photographs. Within these pages are our time together as a couple, from our first summer until the beautiful present day, whenever that happens to be. We hope you enjoy our story as much as we enjoy telling it. Signed, Crowley and..." He paused for a moment, frowning at the bizarre name afterwards. He read it twice, unsure for a moment due to the awful penmanship. "... Aziraphale?"

"Huh. I guess that must be what the A stands for," Lestrade said, raising his eyebrows. "Bit of an odd name, but that's one mystery solved, at least."

"Hm, no," Sherlock cut in, not looking up from the crime scene photos open on the laptop.

"What do you mean, no?" Lestrade said, gesturing at the album. "It's written right there in their private photo album, of course it's his name."

"Oh, I don't doubt that," he replied, gesturing vaguely. "Just think about it. Do you really believe that his name is Aziraphale Zira Fell? No. The name he gave us was just his first name, broken into three parts: A - Zira - Fell. Whatever his surname is, we don't know it."

John let out a long breath, collapsing into his armchair with the album on his lap. "Shouldn't be surprised," he muttered under his breath. He had liked Fell - but then, he wasn't actually 'Fell' was he? He was Aziraphale. He hadn't even given him his real name. Clearly, the man hadn't valued real friendships like he did, or maybe that was just bitterness talking. Perhaps Crowley had been the only one to know who he really was. Perhaps now, he'd be the only one to ever know. Maybe that was his motive; he knew that if Aziraphale died, his true identity would live on with Crowley and Crowley alone. He would belong to him forever. 

John shook himself. He was slipping dangerously into the mind of a killer, and he didn't like it. He looked at the album. He turned over to the first page.

There were summery photographs. Flowering plants, close-ups of farm animals, and blue skies scattered across the pages. They were interspersed with pictures of the happy couple. If there were pictures of Aziraphale on his own, he was usually looking away from the camera, probably unaware it was there at all. It seemed that Crowley liked to take candid shots. The knowledge, probably once sweet, now made John's stomach turn. Aziraphale, by contrast, took pictures of Crowley while he was looking into the lens. In some of the clearer ones, you could see the angel reflected in his sunglasses. He turned a page. This one was full of selfies. The top-left one was of the two of them, Crowley's arm wrapped around the shoulders of a baffled Aziraphale, with a backdrop of rolling, velvety green hills and blazing sunshine. There was a note beneath it, in handwriting that was probably Crowley's: AZIRAPHALE'S FIRST SELFIE. It was cute, even he had to admit, though John's focus was more directed at the angel. He ran his fingers over the edge of the picture, taking in his features. The way his nose turned up ever so slightly at the end, the line of his clean-shaven jaw... He'd never see it again, apart from on a slab at the morgue (and that was only if they got a break in the case). 

Children began to appear in the photographs. Four of them: three boys and a girl, accompanied by a jack russel. From the looks of things, they had clustered around the camera, photobombing until the lens was turned solely on them. Their most impressive attempt to muscle in was when they stacked themselves, four high, on one another's shoulders in the background of a selfie, waving at the camera. After that, the two smiling adults seemed to have finally relented. There was a large photograph with Crowley, Aziraphale and all the children squished into the shot. At the bottom, their names were written in children's handwriting with black marker pen: ADAM, BRIAN, PEPPER, WENSLEYDALE, DOG + OUR GODFATHERS!! 

"Lestrade," he called. The inspector looked up from the file he was flicking through. "I might have something."

He showed them the picture of the children. "That's a lead, but we can't do much without surnames," he said uneasily. "Let's just hope that Crowley hasn't gone to them. The last thing we need is a bunch of kids in danger, too."

Sherlock cleared his throat. "I'm about to play the camcorder footage," he called over. John set aside the album, and he and Lestrade joined Sherlock by the laptop. The detective's finger hovered over the enter key for a moment, as if something had just occurred to him.

"Really hope they don't have a sex tape on here," he said aphrensively, and hit play. 

The first video began rolling. It was shaky, moving through the book shop as if searching for something. "Crowley!" Aziraphale called out from behind the camera.

"M'in here," he called from the kitchen. He looked up as the camera entered the room, and smirked. "What's this, angel?"

"A camcorder!" He replied proudly. Crowley leaned against the kitchen top, arms crossed with a fond expression. He was still wearing his sunglasses. "That's a portmanteau of camera and recorder, I believe. I discovered it in a box upstairs."

"A gift from Adam, do you think?" He speculated, taking a glass of juice from the counter behind him. "After the reset?"

"Mayhaps, my dear demon, mayhaps," he said thoughtfully. The footage cut there, abruptly. It seemed like Aziraphale had accidentally hit the stop button. 

The three men in 221B frowned at the screen. It had seemed like a normal home video at first, with a thin layer of quirkiness over the top that you quickly got used to with those two. But then...

"Did he just call Crowley 'demon', as if it's a pet name?" Lestrade said first, voice mottled with confusion.

"Nevermind that. Crowley calls him angel, so Aziraphale started calling him demon in return. It's a natural duality, not a hard leap," Sherlock said dismissively (if only he knew). "I'm more interested in what 'the reset' is. John, any ideas?"

The doctor shook his head lightly. He felt a little dazed, having heard Aziraphale's voice again. It reminded him of the guilt, sitting heavily like a stone in his belly. The last time he'd heard that voice, he'd almost been too drunk to remember. Regret stung like a nettle. With a long, almost sympathetic silence, Sherlock sensed the need to move on. He hit play on the next video. 

The time stamp told them that this one was filmed two weeks after the first. This time, the camera was in Crowley's hands, pointing at Aziraphale. "Go on, then, angel. I'm rolling," he said, voice alight with anticipation.

The angel frowned at the camera. He was stood at the front desk in his shop, with six bouncy rubber balls in his hands. "No you're not, you're stood up," he said, baffled. Crowley sighed.

"Figure of speech. Now get on with it!"

"Right," he said, his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration. Tentatively, he threw one rubber ball into the air, and then the next, and it suddenly became clear what he was doing. He was juggling. 

"Hey! You're actually doing it!" Crowley cried out in surprise and delight. "I thought it'd be a repeat of your magic act."

"I am an excellent magician, thank you very much!" He retorted haughtily, though his eyes remained focused on the task at hand. He was halfway through his next sentence when a bell jingled behind the camera. Losing concentration, Aziraphale dropped the balls, and they began to bounce chaotically across the shop. He snatched at thin air, trying to get hold of them and failing miserably as they escaped his grasp. More than once, half a curse word escaped his mouth before he choked it back, or quickly censored himself ("oh sssssssh - sugarplums!", for example). 

"Oh bother!" He said, scowling, as he regained his composure. Crowley broke out into laughter. The customer who had just entered looked very puzzled, and that was the last shot before the video ended. 

Sherlock wasted no time in skipping to the next. The penultimate video opened with a shot that panned across the book shop. It appeared to be closed, with the blinds down and the space lit by artificial light only. Then, the camera turned and silently panned across the back room, then did the same with the kitchen, before venturing up the stairs. It entered the bedroom, where Crowley lounged against the headboard, his hands clasped behind his neck. He had a pair of earbuds in, and was tapping out a beat with his foot. His trademark sunglasses sat on the pillow beside him, though his eyes were firmly closed. Sherlock sat up at the sight, his curiosity piqued. Silently, he willed Crowley to open his eyes, even just slightly. He'd always wanted to know what he was hiding behind the shades, and now, he was so tantalisingly close... The cameraman, who was now obviously Aziraphale, cleared his throat. 

"Crowley, darling, you're on tape," he said. He got no response. With a huff, Aziraphale walked closer. His hand appeared in the shot, and tugged the earbuds out.

Crowley's eyes snapped open. "Hey!" He cried, and whatever he said next was really irrelevant. Sherlock abruptly hit pause.

"What the...?" Lestrade muttered, squinting at the screen as if he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing. 

There could be no mistaking it. Crowley's eyes were vibrant, burning yellow, with dark slits down the centre. 

"Bilateral uveal coloboma, occurring in naturally amber eyes," Sherlock murmured in awe, his hands folded under his chin. "Incredible."

"No, that can't be natural," Lestrade said, shaking his head. "Look at the colour!"

"Amber eyes are very rare. The yellow is often so dilute it's mistaken for hazel, but this... I've never seen eyes like this before," he explained. "The probability of this happening to one man is astronomical."

"Coloboma usually restricts vision," John muttered, frowning at Crowley's eyes. The doctor in him was talking. "He shouldn't be driving. His pupils are so thin, I'm surprised he's not blind."

"He's full of surprises, evidently," Sherlock said, resuming the footage. Privately, he shared John's confusion. Crowley should absolutely be blind, but if he was, Sherlock would have deduced it months ago. Besides, he'd heard the demon discuss things he saw, seen him read things from a page, and swerve artfully around obstacles in the road... He could definitely see.

The rest of the video was innocuous. Aziraphale explained that he was filming each room in the house so he could revisit it, if they ever had to move away. Crowley smiled, his unnerving eyes hooded with love and a general relaxed air. He'd commented on Aziraphale's obsessive sentimentality, with an air of it himself, then wished him luck. After that, the angel bustled off, and completed his home video house tour. Sherlock flicked to the next, and last, video.

"This one's several hours long," he muttered. "Lestrade, was the camcorder charged when you found it?"

"No, it needed new batteries," he replied. "Why?"

"Because this video was taken the night Aziraphale was killed," he said sombrely, his finger hovering over the time stamp on the corner. John sucked in a sharp breath, leaning heavily on the corner of the table. 

"If... If it was..." He began, struggling for breath all of a sudden. He took in a lungful of air, and began his sentence over again. "The murder could be on here."

Sherlock nodded, sucking in his lips as he hit play. The video started with a blank screen; or perhaps not. Someone was stood in front of the camera, very close. There was a rustling sound. Someone - Crowley, it sounded like - muttered curses, and the shot jerked to the side as the camera was flicked across the table. It seemed that Crowley had leant on the power button, and inadvertently set the camera rolling. The camera faced the wall, on its side, but stayed rolling. 

Crowley called out. "Angel! Let's get moving, Warlock's not a patient kid," he said. Hurried footsteps passed by the camera, and Aziraphale's voice could be heard, giving inane assurances that the child would be just fine.

A bell jingled in the next room, and the shot rattled as a door slammed shut. Silence fell. Sherlock wound the footage forward, occasionally slowing down again to check if anything was happening. With no visual, they were forced to rely on audio alone. It wasn't until the last few minutes of footage, when they had all begun to lose hope, that the bell jingled again. They all straightened up with bated breath. 

"You're a bloody FOOL, Aziraphale!" Crowley's voice raged. His footfalls stomped across the floorboards. 

"I'm the fool?" He responded indignantly. His footsteps were lighter, but more audible than usual nonetheless. "Says the man screaming and shouting over nothing more than a kiss."

"It wasn't just a kiss, though, was it?" He snapped.

"Excuse me?" He said, his voice dropping to a low, offended tone. "I do hope you're not implying what I think you are, dear boy."

"What? Go on, say it."

"I am not being unfaithful to you, Crowley, as you well know," Aziraphale said firmly. The floorboards creaked as he made his way across the room. "And that is all I'll say until you calm down."

"Until I - ? Hey! Don't just walk away," he shouted back. There was a brief shuffle of clothing and a frustrated cry, but it was hard to tell which of them it came from.

"Get OFF!" Aziraphale burst out. John flinched. At any moment, he expected the sound of a splintering vase, and the telltale gasp as a stabwound stole the breath from the angel's body. The tension was making him physically sick. There was a quiet moment. Heavy breathing dominated the audio.

"What are you gonna do, angel? Smite me?" Crowley said evenly, in a tone that was almost soft. It was daring him to do it. He sounded vulnerable, like he expected to be hurt. Sherlock tilted his head. That was a very literal interpretation of the 'Angel' pet name.

"You are being ridiculous," Aziraphale retorted shortly. 

"I - I'm being - ? Oh of course! Excuse me, your grand holiness, O Principality Aziraphale, who is always so above his emotions!" He said, the floor groaning again under the weight of his agitated footsteps. Sherlock was lacking in his theological knowledge, and felt a bit lost. "This is Alpha Centauri all over again."

"You mean, you want to run away from all your responsibilities and pretend it's not your fault?" He said, more venemously than John had ever heard him speak. He was slightly taken aback. 

"You BASTARD," Crowley screeched. The camcorder couldn't quite handle the volume spike; the audio crackled for a moment before returning to normal. His voice was thick, holding back tears. "I did that because I love you. I love you more than anything on this earth, don't you dare try to turn that against me. And you told me that you forgave me, you... you heartless... angel."

He hissed out the last word like a vile curse. What had once been a beloved pet name now seemed to leave a bad taste in his mouth. Aziraphale took a sharp breath. Whatever that word meant as an insult, he clearly took it personally. "How dare you," he breathed, as if he couldn't believe his ears.

"How dare I? HA!" Crowley said. "Have you listened to anything you've said tonight, or is that just me? Am I just talking to myself here?"

"I'd rather you were. You're being completely hysterical," he told him sharply. John could almost hear the way he crossed his arms and raised his chin, looking away from his boyfriend in disapproval. 

"Hysterical, bloody hysterical... That's what you think of me, is it?" He said. The pain bled through the laptop speakers, almost tangible even in a recording. If they hadn't known what happened next, John and Lestrade might have felt sorry for Crowley. "Silly old demon, stupid, going strange over a little thing like a kiss..."

"Yes, it was a little thing, wasn't it?" Aziraphale replied, a note of haughty triumph in his voice. 

Everything went quiet. Strangled breathing permeated the audio, misting up the white noise that took hold in the lulls between words. Another noise joined in. It was small and weak, like the first cry of a baby animal, and so pathetic that even Sherlock had to strain his ears to figure out what it was. It was a sob. 

"... Crowley?" Aziraphale asked, his voice gentle and uncertain and clearly taken off-guard. 

An anguished scream ripped through the silence. Shattering porcelain crowded the audio. Then, halfway through the noise, the camera cut out. It was so abrupt that, for a moment, John thought that the video had frozen. He gave a start when he realised that wasn't the case.

"No. No no no, that can't be it," he said, pushing Sherlock's hands aside to check the progress bar at the bottom of the screen. The video had ended. That was, indeed, it.

"The camcorder must have died," Lestrade sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just at the wrong moment. We could have had it, you know. Could've caught him in the act."

"Yes," Sherlock said, his deep voice a welcome dash of familiarity to the panic settling around John's heart. "Are you all right, John? That must have been... hard, for you."

Trying to even out his breathing, he planted his feet on the carpet and turned to his friend. "No. I'm not okay, Sherlock," he said. He jabbed a finger at the darkened screen. "That's my fault. I set that whole argument off."

"Well, technically, I invited them for drinks in the first place. If anyone should take the blame, it's me," Sherlock replied, funnelling as much certainty as he could into his voice, desperately hoping it would convince John to stop torturing himself. 

"No, if anyone takes the blame, it's Crowley," Lestrade piped up firmly, scowling at them both. "Neither of you had any reason to believe that this could have happened. It's not your fault, and Aziraphale wouldn't want you to think that, either."

That brought John back to earth. Sherlock saw the way that his guilt loosened; his eyes became softer again. Sad, but softer. John hadn't known Aziraphale all that long but clearly, if he had, he might have fallen in love with him eventually. Maybe he knew that. Maybe that's why he was in so much pain; he could have loved him. Even if he never would have acted on it, even if he'd repress it until the end of time, he still felt that loss. Feeling that his train of thought was somehow encroaching on John's privacy, Sherlock turned away. His friend's obvious affection for Aziraphale hurt him too, in a way he could never, in good conscience, admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Crowley needs a hug


	13. Godfather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very, very dark implications during this chapter, fair warning

Lestrade had left the photo album with Sherlock, hoping he'd be able to identify some of the locations in it. By his logic, it was possible that Crowley had bolted somewhere he'd been before, maybe to a friend who'd be willing to hide him. Now a week after the murder, people had taken notice of the commotion. Twitter had blown up with photographs of the crime scene at the bookshop. People were asking where Fell & Cro had gone. Nothing had gone up on their blog in weeks. Lestrade had no choice but to announce Mr AZ Fell as a missing person, and issue a warrant for Mr AJ Crowley's arrest. 

Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening. My heart goes out to Fell's friends and family #AZFell 

Sherlock Holmes had better be working this case. He owes a lot to Fell. Be a man, Holmes #SaveFell #HolmesandFell

I don't believe that Crowley's involved, not for a second. Everyone's jumping on him like he's the only one who could be guilty - what about all the enemies Fell & Cro made as detectives??? They're probably BOTH in danger #SaveFell #SaveCrowley

Is Fell dead?????? #AZFell 

Crowley was always kind of sketchy... Bound to happen I guess. Hoping Fell turns up ok soon #SaveFell

The police are telling us nothing. We don't know if Fell could be hurt or dead or locked up somewhere, and we don't know why the hell Crowley is a suspect and not a victim. They just say he's dangerous and we "should not approach". Maybe if they just cut us in on the details they might solve this faster #SaveFell #ScotlandYard

Sherlock stopped looking at Twitter after that. John was milling around the flat all the time nowadays, and it was no good for him. He was too curious for his own good. Other people's opinions had too much of an unhealthy effect on him. Besides, he had more important concerns. His homeless network hadn't come back with any leads, and none of his contacts knew anything about Crowley's facial tattoo, or whether it really was connected with gangs in some way. The footage of the argument was rambling and unclear, with references to an obscure hierarchy of angel and distant stars that seemed to mean nothing at all. The warrant was out, and Crowley was probably either heading for the nearest airport with a new identity, or he had gone deeper into hiding. There was nothing he could do in the case of the former. The latter, however...

"John, get your coat," he muttered. 

He looked up from his tea. "Why? Got a lead?"

"Possibly," he replied, making for the door, turning up his collar as he went.

"Shouldn't we tell Lestrade?"

"Can't. If we alert the police, Crowley will see us coming from a mile away, and we'll be back where we started," he replied, pausing to wait for John to pull his shoes on.

"You know where he is?" He cried, mouth falling open as he nearly fell over.

"Maybe. It's just a hunch," he said. "Now come along, John! The game is on."

Crowley rested his hands on Aziraphale's shoulders, squeezing lightly. The angel looked up from his book, tilting his head back far enough to look into his boyfriend's eyes. "Yes, dear?"

"I was thinking about popping over to Tadfield for the day," he said, hoping his voice sounded casual enough. "Check in on Adam, have a chat with Anathema..."

"That sounds delightful. When are we leaving?" He said, closing his book in his lap, his finger still inside to keep his page. Technically, the journey between their cottage and Tadfield was far too long to justify taking on a whim, but technicalities meant very little when you had a semi-sentient, quasi-demonic car at your disposal. 

Crowley cursed internally. "Actually, I thought I might go on my own," he said. He rushed to justify himself at the sight of Aziraphale's crestfallen, confused expression. "Not because I don't want you there! It's just - I - er - "

He sighed, laying his hand over Crowley's. "My dear, if this is about the things I said, when we had our argument in the shop..."

"It's not that. I'm over that."

"No, you aren't, and you shouldn't be," he said, standing up from his chair to face him properly. The book lay forgotten on the seat. "I behaved very coldly that night. I ignored how hurt you were, and I haven't forgiven myself for it. Please, don't... Don't think of the things I said in anger as the truth."

Crowley was dumbstruck for a moment. "N - gk - " he said, barely able to form sounds. "O-okay, angel."

Aziraphale smiled sweetly, and gave him a peck on the cheek. "Now, if you need a day to yourself, go and take one. Don't let me stop you," he said.

"Yeah, I'll - I'll bring back something nice for dinner, shall I?" He said, walking backwards towards the living room door, loathe to take his eyes off his angel. He bumped into the sideboard on the way out, almost knocking over a vase.

"That sounds lovely."

John recognised their surroundings immediately as he stepped out of the rental car. The stunning emerald hills, lush trees, swaying wildflowers by the roadsides; it was the place from the photo album, where the children lived. He glanced around as they walked down the main thoroughfare. It was a truly idyllic postcard village, somehow untouched by the tourist industry. They stopped beside the cemetery gate, in the shadow of the church.

"Where are we, Sherlock?" He asked finally, glancing over his shoulder, as if Crowley might round the corner at any moment, knife in hand.

"Lower Tadfield," he replied. A gentle breeze played with his curls. "Crowley's godchildren are here."

"Yes, I know that," he replied. "And don't give me the look. We've talked about this. I don't know what's going on, you have to explain."

"Parents usually appoint their closest friends to be godparents," he said, leaning in slightly as his eyes scanned the street. "If there's anyone Crowley might trust enough to harbour him, we can narrow it down to one of a maximum of four sets of parents in this village. Even if he's not here, they might know where he went."

"But we don't know where they are," he pointed out. "We can't exactly go around and just ask. I mean, two strange men, following a group of children around? Doesn't look great."

"I realise that, but there are ways around it," he said, narrowing his eyes at an elderly lady leaving the post office.

"Like what?"

"Stand around looking suspicious. You're doing a fine job," he replied, pulling his coat collar further up over his face.

"What's that going to - " he began, only to be cut off by shout from behind.

"You there!" An old man cried, a sausage dog trotting by his ankle. Sherlock's plan had worked already. "What's your business in this village?"

Sherlock's face lit up, and John knew he was doing his best impression of a human. The detective stepped past him, folding down his collar and holding out his hand to shake. The old man took it apprehensively. "Hi, my name's Mr Swan, this is my colleague Doctor Crow," he said. He realised a split second after he had it that 'crow' may not have been the best bird to pick for John's fake name, but it would have to do. 

"Mr Tyler, Residents' Association," he replied, shaking his hand with a guarded expression. 

"Oh, just the man!" He said, clapping his hands together in delight. His expression overflowed with friendliness. "We're representatives from the new National Board of Residents' Associations, just here to have a look around the village, check your operations."

"I've never heard of any national board before," he said suspiciously. His dog plonked itself down onto the path, panting in the relentless sunshine. "What do you do?"

"We're very new, only just formed," John cut in with a polite smile, glancing at Sherlock, who silently egged him on. "We're out here looking for as many members as possible. The idea is that - uh, that all the member associations report on common issues in their parish, and then the most reported issues can be tackled nationwide, as a collective."

Mr Tyler straightened up as if he had been called to arms. "Well it's about bloody time!" He exclaimed. "You can report right back to your head office, tell them that Tadfield's greatest menace is its young hoodlums!"

"Do you have any specifics on that, Mr Tyler?" Sherlock asked curiosity, still smiling kindly. It looked very odd to anyone who knew him. "It's just that, we would benefit from having a quick word with the parents, seeing their take. All part of our research."

Crowley parked the Bentley on the outskirts of town, beside Anathema's cottage. It seemed that every time he rolled onto the Main Street instead, he got harassed by Mr Tyler and that stupid little rat-dog he had with him. Had Crowley been more like Hastur instead, he'd probably have kicked that dog by now. It kept growling at him whenever he was nearby. He jogged up Jasmine Cottage's path and pounded on the window.

"Open up, Device!" He shouted. There a shuffle from inside, and the witch's head poked out of the kitchen window where Crowley stood.

"Crowley?" She said, baffled. "What are you doing here?"

"Need some advice," he replied, leaning heavily on the wall. "It's a sort of... human thing, and I don't know what to do."

She frowned, and glanced over her shoulder. "Do you want to come inside?" She asked warily. 

"You'll be glad to know, Anathema, that I can't," he said dryly. He was very aware that she didn't trust him at all, being a demon. She was civil with him because Aziraphale trusted him, and he was an angel, so he would know. Oh, how wrong she was.

"Really?" She said, a little too pleased with that. 

"Yeah, the horseshoe works wonders," he said, then added on: "But don't get cocky. I could still break in if I really wanted to."

With a grimace, and no doubt already formulating more effective ways to ward her cottage from evil in future, she returned inside. A couple of seconds later, she stepped out the front door, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. He noticed that she didn't stray far from beneath the horseshoe. He also noticed that she had a crucifix around her neck, which hadn't been there a second ago, and there was a breadknife in her belt, which he doubted she carried around the house out of habit.

"Have I ever mentioned how touched I am, that you trust me so much?" He said sarcastically. 

"What did you want to ask me, Crowley?" She said calmly.

He pursed his lips. "Is Newt in?"

"You're not allowed near him until I know what you want," she said protectively. He could respect that; if Gabriel turned up at his door unannounced, he wouldn't let him anywhere near Aziraphale, either. 

He took a deep breath through his nose, clasping his hands together. "I need you to explain human marriage customs to me."

Sherlock and John, under the guise of Mr Swan and Dr Crow, visited the first of the four sets of parents. It was the Young household, on Hogback Lane. They settled into the living room, gratefully accept the tea and biscuits Mrs Young laid out. They introduced their false premise as they had before, and finally broached the subject of their son, the supposed hoodlum.

"Do you think, perhaps," Sherlock said carefully after a while, "that external influences might have played a part in his antisocial behaviour?"

"Well, his friends are - " Mr Young began.

"Not friends," he cut in, forgetting his polite demeanour for a moment. "We were thinking something more like... Uncles, aunts, or even godparents..."

He put particular influence on the word 'godparents'. Mrs Young bit her lip, and said "Well... There's always Mr Fell and Mr Crowley," she said uncertainly. She turned to John and Sherlock. "Adam's... godfathers."

John gave an uncertain smile. "You don't sound too sure about that, Mrs Young."

"Well, it's rather embarrassing to admit, but... We don't, actually, um... " she said nervously, messing with her hair. "We don't remember how we met them in the first place, or why we appointed two men we hardly know to be his godparents."

Mr Young winced. "Now, Deidre, we don't 'hardly know them'. They're... Well, there's the fact that," he said, as if suddenly realising that he knew nothing about the two men. "They're very responsible. Mr Crowley, he's got that nice car, and Mr Fell is a respectable businessman, down in London. And besides that, Adam is very close to them both."

Sherlock and John shared a glance. That was odd. "Have you seen either of them recently, Mr and Mrs Young?" Asked Sherlock.

"No, not since last Halloween," Mrs Young said, them smiled slightly. "Mr Crowley had the best costume. He went as a sort of snake monster, and he wore the most amazing yellow contact lenses."

Newt and Anathema sat across from the demon, around a set of garden furniture. She sighed, shaking her head. "No, Crowley, the rings have nothing to do with the circles of hell," she said.

"Looks like it to me," he said stubbornly, leaning back as far as the chair would allow. "Why does none of this make any sense?"

"It's not about making sense, it's just tradition," Newt said, shuffling in his seat. Beside him, the flower-laden shrub dipped under the weight of its blooms, spreading bright yellow pollen onto his shoulder. 

"Well, I can't do the church part," he pointed out, scratching his neck. "I'll burn m'feet."

"Weddings don't have to be in churches," Anathema said tiredly, drinking her lemonade.

"So much for tradition," he muttered sourly, dropping arm back into his lap. 

"Weren't you an angel once?" Newt asked. "I'd thought you'd know all this, about marriage and stuff, since it all started off as a religious thing."

Crowley looked at him like he was an idiot which, to be fair, is probably not far wrong. "Do I strike you as the kind of angel who read the bloody manual?" He snapped. "I'm fallen, in case you forgot. I wasn't exactly a model citizen upstairs."

"Right, sorry... But why not ask Aziraphale, then? He's not fallen," he said, and Anathema kicked him under the table. She didn't want an angry demon in her garden, at least not on such a lovely afternoon. 

"I think that would rather give the game away, don't you?" He said dryly, running his tongue over his teeth. 

"Oh! You mean - you're planning to propose?" He exclaimed, his hand reaching up to his mouth as he dropped his voice low, as if it was a secret. Anathema and Crowley stared at him in disbelief.

"You're only just now realising that, are you?" The demon said. 

Sherlock and John left the Young house, and decided not to visit any others. They had the information they needed already, plus another mystery to add to the pile. John wished he could have told the Youngs that Aziraphale was missing, perhaps dead, but whilst he was playing the character of Dr Crow, he couldn't give any of that away. He followed his friend along the street, keeping an eye out for anyone acting shifty.

"What now?"

"Not sure. First thought, we check the quarry," he said. The Youngs had mentioned it, calling it The Pit, and saying that local kids played there often. "If Crowley came here, which he may have, but he didn't visit the children, he must have been here to hide - something."

John sighed. "The body, you mean. Fell's body," he said, forgetting for a moment that Fell was a false name. "You don't need to avoid saying it, Sherlock. I know he's dead." 

"Yes. Well," he said, coughing. "The woods is only a short walk away. Should be easy to find the quarry from there."

"Would he have hidden it there, though?" He said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I mean, children play there. You'd have to be sick in the head, to hide a body in - in a playground."

"He is a murderer, John," he pointed out. "And yes, it's the obvious place. There will be a lot of upturned or disturbed earth already, so it would be hard to pick out a grave, even from a satellite image. You could be stood on top of it and might never know."

"So how are we supposed to find it?" 

"There are signs," he replied cryptically. John rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath something about a bloody show-off, but kept pace with him perfectly as they ventured out of town. 

The woods were incredible. The layer of leaves and foliage everywhere made the ground slightly springy underfoot, and the cool, clean smells of nature danced on the breeze. Sunlight dappled through the canopy, the branches shielding the forest floor from the intensity of the midday heat. Sounds began to echo through the trees. They listened closely: children's voices, unmistakably. They shared a glance, and followed their ears. 

"Adam! Tell Wensleydale he's being stupid," a girl's voice cried indignantly. They couldn't see where it was coming from, but there was a rim in the ground, presumably where the quarry hid amongst the bracken.

"Wensleydale, you're being stupid," another voice said obligingly, apparently Adam. 

"No I'm not!" A third protested. 

Sherlock was about to go closer, but stopped. His sharp hearing picked up something else. Somewhere behind them, a twig snapped. He turned to look. There was a flicker of movement; something dark and thin, moving between the tree trunks, coming closer. Whistling reached his ears, to the tune of We Are The Champions. He took a sharp breath, and grabbed John's arm. He threw them both down into the undergrowth, behind a large knotted old tree. The doctor protested for a moment, but Sherlock clamped his hand over his mouth firmly and, moving slowly, he pointed a finger in the direction of the whistling. 

After a moment, a familiar face emerged into a patch of sunshine. His red hair glowed in the light, and he was sauntering along with all the confidence in the world, as if nothing had happened. Sherlock felt John's whole body turn stiff with rage. He put a hand firmly in the centre of his back, keeping him on the ground. He mouthed to him: the children. John forced himself to relax. Sherlock was right. Attacking Crowley here would put the children in danger. 

"Adam!" The demon called out loudly, no longer whistling. The bickering in the quarry fell silent. "Come out, come out, wherever you are... I know you're here, you four."

A clamour of footsteps and rustling leaves broke the silence. Four children raced over the edge of the quarry, rushing up to the new arrival. The first took a flying leap at him, nearly knocking him over, and the other three all clustered around in a group hug. Crowley grinned wide, ruffling their hair and greeting them warmly.

"It's been ages!" The girl, Pepper, said. "Where've you been all this time?"

"Yeah, you disappeared on us after Halloween," Brian chipped in. 

"Sorry, kids, I've been busy," he said, sitting cross-legged amongst the branches. They all followed his lead, listening intently. "But I'm back now, aren't I?"

Adam craned his neck to see further into the woods, back in the direction Crowley had come from. "What about Aziraphale? Is he coming, too?"

John set his jaw, watching Crowley's face. It didn't drop, or scowl, or do anything but smile awkwardly, as if he'd just forgotten his keys. "Ah... No, he's not. Sorry, Adam," he said.

"Why? He can't still be busy, too," 

"I just thought I'd come to see you lot on my own for once. Is that so strange?" He said, pretending to be offended.

"Yes, it is," Wensleydale, who liked Aziraphale very much, said primly. "You're always together. If you're not, then everything's out balance, isn't it?"

He laughed, giving the child a gentle push. "Who made you so smart?" He said. 

"So where is he, then?" Brian asked, who had sat in the dustiest spot there was in a hundred metre radius. "Old Aziraphale."

Crowley gave a snort of laughter at the nickname. "Old Aziraphale is in a little holiday cottage by the sea," he said, leaning back on his hands. The eavesdroppers in the bracken listened with bated breath. "Catching up on his reading, doing whatever he likes best. Does that answer your question?"

"Holiday cottage?" Adam repeated. "I didn't know you had one of those. Is it nice?"

"It's only for a few more days, I think," he said. "I rented it out short notice, since I needed to get out of London pretty quick. Huh, look at me, talking about boring grown up stuff. Didn't you lot say you were building a tree house last time I was here? What happened with that?"

The children quickly forgot about the cottage, and pulled the demon to his feet. They hurried off as a group, disappearing somewhere amongst the trees. The sound of their chatter faded, and Sherlock dragged John up to stand. Before he could say a word, he rushed down into the quarry, and began throwing aside branches and moving leaf piles, examining every inch of dirt. John jumped down after him.

"Sherlock! We're going to lose him," he hissed, looking nervously around as if he might still be watching. 

"We won't. They'll pass by this way again. There are backpacks by the chair there, see?" He said, pointing to what appeared to be a throne. "Tell me, John, do you see any upturned earth? Anywhere?"

He glanced around, spinning on the spot. "No, I don't."

Sherlock hummed in discontent. "Neither do I," he said pensively. 

They trailed Crowley and the gaggle of children all the way back into town, staying a safe distance back. Watson's eyes hardly left the thin demon. Every inch of his body burned with hatred. Had he been a lesser man, he'd have taken out his gun and shot him in the back of the head, then and there. Thankfully, John was a doctor, and a good man, who would rather see Crowley arrested than dead. So, he resigned himself to a hard stare, and a twisting anxiety for the safety of those children. Sherlock thought that Crowley wouldn't have any qualms about taking hostages; he assumed that included children, too. One by one, the children returned home, until only Adam remained. Dog trotted by his feet, like always. 

"Crowley," he said when they stopped outside his garden gate. "Why did Aziraphale really not come today?"

The demon frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You never said why he didn't come. You told us where he was, but not why," he reiterated. John and Sherlock, who were listening from behind a garden wall, glanced at one another.

"I told him to stay at the cottage," he said. "I needed to talk to Anathema about something important."

"Something you won't tell me," the child guessed. He was smart, for his age. 

"Bingo," he replied, then looked thoughtful for a moment. "How about I make it up to you? If your parents say it's okay, you can come home with me tonight to see the cottage, and have dinner with us. How does that sound?"

Adam lit up. "Wicked!" He said, and turned to rush up to the door. Before he got there, his mother opened the door, looking vaguely surprised to see the man in black. "Mum! Can I spend the night at Aziraphale and Crowley's?"

Sherlock only waited for as long as it took for her to say yes, and then he grabbed John's arm and broke into a run. The doctor protested, struggling, trying to go back. 

"John, think!" He barked impatiently, not breaking his stride. "We passed his car on the way here. If we can get to it before him, we can track him back to his hideout, rescue the child and look for Aziraphale's body!"

The Bentley was parked beside a tall hedge, outside a cottage. Sherlock took John's phone from his pocket, without asking, and shoved it unceremoniously through the back window. It had been left open a crack to let a breeze run through while it sat in the heat. Ignoring his complaints, he dragged his blogger away from the car to lie in wait, out of sight. 

"I can track the GPS on your phone," he explained, panting from all the running they'd been doing. He glanced around the corner. "They should be here by now. Maybe they took a detour..."

As if to answer him, Crowley turned the corner, with a shopping bag swinging from his hand, and Adam by his side. The dog was nowhere to be seen (Aziraphale was allergic to hellhounds). The two occult entities were chatting about the lost city of Atlantis, for some reason, as they got into the car. The engine came alive and moved off. 

Half an hour later, they were travelling down a winding country road toward the coast. Crowley had reached his destination far faster than should have been physically possible; he'd turned a two hour drive into a fifteen minute journey. At first Sherlock had thought the GPS was wrong, but the further they travelled, the clearer it became that the Bentley was nowhere in sight. The sun dipped lower, bleeding pink across the horizon. The sound of tyres against concrete dominated the atmosphere. The radio didn't seem appropriate right now.

"The quarry," John said quietly, looking down at his hands.

"What about it?"

"You didn't find anything there," he said, his eyes searching Sherlock's face. He was focused stubbornly on the road ahead. "You realised something there, Sherlock, I know you did. You got that look in your eye. So go on, what was it? You don't need to sugarcoat this just because I - because he was spe - special, to me."

He stumbled over his last few words. He half-expected Sherlock to refuse, or deny it. He gave him a tiny sideways glance, breaking his intent focus on driving for a split second. He took a small sigh. 

"I knew there were several possible scenarios, when Lestrade told me that Fell's body had disappeared," he said. They had slipped into calling him Fell again, now some time had passed since the revelation about names. Somehow, 'Aziraphale' didn't sound right. It just wasn't him. "Crowley might have hidden it somewhere in the shop, but if he had, then it would have been found in the initial search. Even Lestrade's officers couldn't miss a whole corpse just lying around. So, only one answer remained: somehow, the body had been removed from the shop altogether."

John nodded. "Okay. I understand so far," he said. Sherlock was walking him through this one slowly. Was it condescension, or sympathy? 

"That still left me with questions. Why bother? How was it possible? People tend not to notice a great many things, John, but a man dumping a bleeding corpse into his car in broad daylight on a busy street is not one of them," he said. He paused briefly. Shadows fell across his face as they passed through a tunnel of trees. "I guessed that he parked his car very specifically so the back door aligned with the alley beside the shop, and dropped Fell's body from the window, into the open dumpster beneath the bedroom window. He might be able to get it into the car unseen from there, if he was quick enough."

"That's grim," he commented, tapping his fingers against the car door, staring out vacantly into the fields. 

"A bit, yes," he replied. They shared a nervous smile and breathy chuckle. It was the calm before the storm. "I thought the body might turn up in London somewhere, possibly in the Thames, but the traffic cameras tracked the Bentley all the way out of the city. He didn't make any detours or stops."

"Couldn't he have dropped the body outside London?"

"Unlikely. He deliberately took back roads to make himself hard to track," he said. "Leaving the body on his route would risk giving away what direction he'd travelled in. I concluded that he must be transporting the body somewhere else, somewhere he knew it wouldn't be found. I was certain that would be the quarry."

John looked at him for a long moment. "But it wasn't," the doctor said, urging his friend to elaborate. Sherlock had an incredible knack for going too fast most of the time, and then being painfully slow when it suited everyone least. 

"That leaves only one answer, excluding the possibility of a different grave," he said in agreement. "Crowley may have kept the body."

"But he wouldn't have," John said, recoiling instinctively from the thought. The image of Fell's lifeless body, laid out neatly like a doll, made his stomach turn. "He's not that stupid."

"The thought had occurred to me from the start. There was only one real reason that he would risk moving the body, rather than just fleeing London as soon as he committed the murder," he said. "It was a crime of passion; even he hadn't expected the murder to happen that night. He wouldn't have been ready to let go. He had to bring the body with him, John, don't you see? He still loves him, even now."

John's knuckles turned white on the edge of the seat. His head spun, bile rising in the back of his throat. The implications of Sherlock's theory spread through his mind like wildfire, burning and painful and choking. Crowley, keeping his lover's corpse like some sort of of keepsake, or worse... like a toy. "M'gonna be sick," he mumbled. 

Just over an hour's drive ahead, an angel, a demon and the antichrist sat around the circular dinner table in the kitchen. Crowley had made a special effort to learn how to cook several thousand years ago, when he first began to notice that the best was to Aziraphale's heart was through his stomach. That didn't really work out for him in the end (the real path to his heart could be found in the ruins of a church in 1941, which Crowley had danced his way down without even knowing), but it always made for a nice night in. He laid out the plates carefully, and his black heart fluttered when he saw the pure delight on Aziraphale's face. 

"Voilà," he said proudly, sitting down at the circular table. "Filet Mignon, cooked in garlic butter and parsley, topped with a serving of mushrooms in a wine sauce, and a side of steamed asparagus."

"S'amazing!" Adam mumbled, his mouth already stuffed. Aziraphale shook his his head slightly as steak juice dribbled down the child's chin, and miracled a serviette for him to use. Crowley laughed, and tucked into his own meal. They ate for a few minutes in comfortable silence.

"You know," Aziraphale said, pausing for a moment to dab the edges of his mouth. "This rather reminds me of my days at the round table, in Albion."

"Wossat?" Adam asked. His table manners had already improved somewhat, with a few stern glances from the angel. 

"Albion is just a fancy name for England," Crowley explained. "He's talking about when he was a knight, back in the medieval days."

Adam's eyes widened. "You were a knight? Like with a sword and armour and everything?"

The angel puffed out his chest slightly, straightening his spine even further. "Not just any knight, my dear boy," he said proudly. "I sat at the round table in Camelot, with King Arthur himself."

Adam looked fascinated, and excited, and bursting with questions. It blew up the Principality's ego quite noticeably.

"Look out, angel. Pride's a sin, you know," Crowley said, smirking into his wine glass. Aziraphale shot him a sharp glance. The demon only grinned wider, knowing he wasn't really in trouble, and leaned toward Adam, as if to tell him a secret. "While he was off being a goody two shoes, I was riding through the land, spreading chaos. They told legends about me: The Black Knight."

"That was you?" He cried, almost dropping his fork. "I can't believe it! My godfather is the Black Knight, and my other godfather was on the round table with the King. Wait till I tell the Them, they'll go crazy. What else have you two done?"

The rest of dinner was spent retelling old stories. Aziraphale and Crowley often disagreed on the details, but it was entertaining nonetheless. They both avoided the topic of biblical stories, knowing that was a minefield of contentious points, and stuck to lighthearted anecdotes instead. Crowley told Adam about his friend Leonardo Da Vinci, and the original Mona Lisa sketch he bought from him, and how he had invented selfies, fortune fish and the concept of a ding-dong ditch. Aziraphale fondly recounted his lively conversations with Oscar Wilde (who Crowley seemed not to like, not one bit), how he had learnt the gavotte, and that he had liked Shakespeare before it was cool. Eventually, however, once all the plates were clear and the sun had vanished behind the horizon, they managed to get Adam to go to bed. 

"I must say, dear, it was a very nice surprise to have Adam here tonight," Aziraphale said, picking out a book from the shelf while Crowley settled himself into bed. "I do hope you enjoyed your day out today."

"I did, yeah. The Them showed me their latest little construction project, and told me all about the magazines that Anathema gives them," he said, fluffing the pillow. 

"You always have had a soft spot for children," he said with immeasurable fondness. 

"Tell the whole world, why don't you," he mumbled, laying his head down. "I'm still a demon. I'm as evil as they come, me."

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, dear," he said. His gaze lingered on his demon as he drifted slowly out of consciousness. "Sweet dreams."

"Love you," he mumbled sleepily.

"I love you, too, Crowley," he said, and shut the bedroom door softly behind him as he left. 

Aziraphale did, sometimes, sleep. If he'd had a long day, or had eaten too much, or was too drunk to remember how to sober up, then he usually admitted defeat and took a nap. On winter nights, when Crowley's cold blood made him shiver for hours, he usually stayed in bed beside his demon to keep him warm. But if the night was warm, and Aziraphale just wasn't tired, he'd wander off to find a comfortable spot and read until dawn. When sunlight first began to trickle across the house, he'd close his book, and return upstairs to nuzzle Crowley awake with the first light. It was a pleasant routine, and it worked for them both. 

The front lawn was nice, but Aziraphale didn't want a view of the road. He liked the back garden; there was a nice rocking chair on the porch, and he found that he could read well enough by moonlight alone. He settled into the chair, opening his copy of Jane Eyre. He'd probably have it finished by the early hours of the morning. Maybe, once he was done, he might just crawl into bed beside Crowley and close his eyes for a while. It might be nice, for a change. With a hint of a smile on his lips, he began to read. 

A sound made him pause. He looked up from his book. Nothing. Writing it off, he kept reading. But no, there it was again. It was a sort of small, scratchy sound, barely even audible. There was a click. It was so tiny, he wasn't even certain he'd heard it. Maybe it was an animal somewhere in the garden, he thought. He tried to ignore it. Paranoia itched in the back of his head. With a sigh, knowing he wouldn't relax until he'd put his mind at ease, he set his book down and stood up. 

John and Sherlock had parked at the end of the long lane, watching the cottage across the field. John had wanted to go straight in, but Sherlock had insisted they wait. It would be better to wait until Crowley was asleep, if they could.

"There's a child in there, Sherlock, we can't wait forever," he said restlessly, unable to move his eyes off the silent building. It seemed so small, from this distance. 

"If Crowley planned to hurt him, he will have already done it," he said slowly, his hands pressed together under his nose. "It's much more likely that this is a kidnapping. Adam is his godson; easy to take, easy to induce Stockholm syndrome. Leave it a few days and there'd have been a ransom note on Lestrade's doorstep, I guarantee it. He'll know by now that he's being hunted."

He didn't respond to that. Something was happening. One by one, the yellow light in each distant window blinked out, leaving only the full moon to shine light onto the house. John wondered if Adam had noticed anything was amiss yet. He must have, if Aziraphale was nowhere to be seen. How could Crowley cover that up? He shuddered at the thought that the young boy could have seen his other godfather's body, not to mention whatever Crowley might have... might have done to it. No longer willing to wait for Sherlock's cue, he got out of the car and began to walk down the gravel road. He heard the crunch of his friend's footsteps catch up to him.

"We'll need to sweep every room before we go upstairs," he muttered. His skin was cast in silvery light, his eyes shining like stars under the moon; he looked something beyond mortal, in John's eyes. "Crowley could be anywhere. We can't afford to assume he's definitely asleep, or definitely upstairs."

He nodded tersely. His eyes were dead ahead, his mind focused on the task. The uneven road beneath his feet awakened a vague memory from Afghanistan. It was such a simple thing. It was always the simple things that brought it all back. 

"We should find Crowley first. If Adam sees us, he might raise the alarm," Sherlock continued as the cottage loomed ever closer. "Leave your gun holstered until you have good visibility. We don't want a dead child on our hands by mistake."

"I'm a soldier, Sherlock. I was trained for this," he said sharply. 

They stopped at the foot of the house. Above them, the curtains were drawn. Nothing stirred. Sherlock knelt down, picking the lock. The scratching noises seemed painfully loud in the stilted silence of the night. John glanced over his shoulder, tensing up as the wind rustled the plants. The twisted shapes of willow branches and vines became monstrous and serpentine in the dark. The front door clicked open.

Mercifully, the door did not creak. It swung inward under a gentle nudge, giving nothing away. Sherlock closed it softly as John followed him in. He glanced at the stairs; he had half expected to see a yellow-eyed silhouette storming down toward them. Instead, the stillness of the shadows unnerved him. Anticipation often feels far more threatening than the action. Moving away from the bottom step, he crept after Sherlock, looking into the living room. He saw his tall, unmistakable shape, examining the patterns of dust on the sideboard. Shaking his head, John drew back. He was getting distracted. 

Not saying a word, he took slow, quiet steps down the hall. A tickle against his ankle nearly startled him, before he recognised the sensation of an air current on his skin. In front of him, a set of French windows stood open, letting in the oceanic nighttime breeze. Tentatively, he poked his head outside. The fresh air was a welcome reprieve from the tense atmosphere inside. He looked down. His heart skipped a beat. Gently oscillating back and forth, as if someone still sat there, was an antique rocking chair. An old copy of Jane Eyre lay on the seat. John may not be the best at deductions, but he wasn't blind. If the chair was still moving, then someone had been here just moments ago. Clenching his jaw hard to stop himself from making a sound, he withdrew back into the house. He lay his hands on top of his gun, feeling its cool, reassuring presence. 

He took two steps backwards. He hadn't yet moved his eyes away from the back garden as it stretched out, rippling gently under the calm sway of the sea breeze. The stars winked at him. To his right, an indistinct shape stood just beyond the doorframe. It moved slightly and, finally, John noticed.

He took a sharp gasp, stumbling backwards, into the wall. Deep, inky blackness filled every inch of the hallway. He drew his gun, pointing it with a steady hand. "Stay back," he commanded. There was a raspiness in his tone, like sandpaper. "I'm warning you. Don't move."

His eyes adjusted slowly to the dark. The outline began to get clearer; the figure lifted their hands in surrender, and tilted its head. John blinked. That hair, the line of the shoulders... No. He was still grieving. He was seeing things that he wanted to see. He breathed slow and steady through his nose. He remembered his training. He felt like the figure was looking into him, weighing him up right down to his very soul. 

"Doctor Watson?" said a hauntingly familiar voice. It was prim, proper, and distinctly English. "Is that you, my dear man?"

His arm dropped slightly. His face went slack. Had he heard it right? Was he hallucinating this shape in the dark, talking to him, in that voice that could put even the most restless sleeper to bed? He swallowed, his throat dry. Something within him ached to reach out into the dark. 

"... Fell?" he whispered.


	14. The Risen Angel

"Let me just find a light switch," said Aziraphale. His fingers brushed across the wall, flicking on the wall-mounted bulbs along the hall. 

John flinched at the change. He squinted as his eyes strained to adjust. Out of the blazing lamplight and swimming aftervisions, a pale and rotund figure emerged. It was Fell. He stood there wide-eyed and concerned, his hands fidgeting nervously by his sides. He looked aprehensive under John's gaze as it swept him from head to toe. 

"Are you all right, doctor Watson? You look like you've seen a ghost," he said apprehensively. He jumped as footsteps thundered through from the living room, turning toward the sound. 

Sherlock faltered. His jaw slackened, and his pale eyes stretched wider than John had seen them before. The doctor's knees nearly gave out. "Sh - Sherlock? You can s - see him, can't you? Please tell me you can see him."

He nodded slowly. He cautiously approached the baffled Fell, who glanced between the two men with mounting concern. Sherlock cautiously reached out, laying his hand on Fell's shoulder. He found it solid and real beneath his palm. A split second after, the detective found John's gun thrust into his palm as his friend threw his arms tightly around Fell's shoulders. 

"Oh my!" Fell exclaimed, awkwardly hugging back after a moment, with a couple of gentle pats on his back. 

"I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead," John whispered. He repeated it under his breath like a mantra as he clung to Fell's body, feeling its living warmth, the pulse beneath his skin, the small movements in his grip. He felt Fell push him back, holding him back by the shoulders to look him in the eye. They stood so close, it made John's stomach flutter.

"Dead?" He repeated.

"Yes, how did you get away?" Sherlock cut in, no doubt feeling quite ignored. "There were very limited options for escape from that room, and even more limited possibilities for navigating out of Soho undiscovered, let alone London."

"Room? What room?" He said, baffled. He let go of John's shoulders, failing to notice the shudder that ran down his body once he did. 

"Your bedroom in London," he said. "We saw you, you weren't breathing. Crowley chased us off before we could help. How did you escape with him so close by? Where is he now? Are we safe here?"

"He did mention that you two had broken in..." Fell murmured thoughtfully. "I still don't understand. Why would I be running from my own home? Why would I leave without Crowley?"

The two intruders shared a panicked glance. "Because he attacked you," John said, staring intently at him. The response was immediate: Fell's spine straightened out and his brow furrowed thunderously, his fists clenched by his sides. 

"I'll have you know, Doctor Watson, that Crowley has never once laid a finger on me, not even in anger, and he never would," he said angrily. "I don't know where on earth you've conjured this bizarre fantasy from, but you can put it away, because it is pure codswallop."

John dropped his gaze to the floor, his cheeks burning. Sherlock cleared his throat. "Fell, um... I think you'd better fetch Crowley," he said, nodding toward the ceiling. A picture was now forming in his head of what must have happened. "We have some explaining to do."

Crowley had not been too happy being dragged out of bed so late at night, and he was even less happy to find John and Sherlock downstairs. They took their seats around the round table in the kitchen, and began to sheepishly explain. Fell was very emotive. His expressions varied from shocked, to horrified, to offended and back to shocked again. Crowley, unnervingly, just stared impassively at them from behind his dark lenses. It was only his occasional adjustment of his position that kept John from thinking he had fallen asleep. He didn't like to look directly over at the demon. He had spent days thinking that he had brutally murdered the man they both loved (or would have loved, in John's case), and he was struggling to separate the image of Crowley the Murderer and Crowley the Man in his head. They came to the end of their story, and nervously awaited a response.

"You mean that there have been strangers poking around in my books ever since we left?" Aziraphale exclaimed in a panic, nearly lifting himself out of his seat before Crowley reached across to pull him back down.

"Your books will be fine, angel. It's a crime scene, they hardly touch anything," he reassured him tiredly. He rubbed his temples. Aziraphale furrowed his brow, reaching out for him.

"Crowley? What's the matter?"

"Everyone we know thinks I'm a murderer. That I was capable of - of hurting you, of all people," he said. He was clearly upset by this. John stared at the table, guilt settling in a pit in his stomach. 

"But you didn't, did you? I know you would never, ever even dream of harming me," He said, rubbing his arm comfortingly. "And not everyone, dear. Adam doesn't think that, nor Pepper, Brian and Wensleydale. Then there's Madame Tracey, and Sergeant Shadwell, and - "

"I get it, angel. Our Tadfield buddies know the truth," he interrupted shortly, then sighed apologetically a moment later and lay his hand over Aziraphale's. He raised his eyes across the table, glaring at the two men. "You two can sleep in the living room. We'll work this mess out first thing tomorrow, after we drop our godson off at home."

Many miles away, in the heart of London as the day broke, Lestrade got an early start into work. He hadn't heard from Sherlock since he'd given him the photo album, which was either very promising, or very suspicious, or both. Pale sunlight washed over the grey city skyline, heralding another bleak morning. He yawned and stretched behind his desk. He flicked through the evidence again, from Fell's disappearance-and-probable-murder. He had hoped that he'd find a clue as to where Crowley/O'Eden/Sinner/Gardener/Cowlley whatever-his-name-really-was might have gone, or who he might be now. He glared at his phone as it rung. He considered not answering, but his professionalism won out, and he picked it up.

"Detective Inspector Lestrade, what can I do to help?" He said. 

"Clearing my name would be nice," a voice drawled lazily. Lestrade's pen slipped from his hand.

"Crowley," he realised out loud, and half stood from his desk, thoughts of tracing the call rushing through his head.

"Don't bother, Greg, I'm coming home soon," the demon said nonchalantly, as if he could see into the office. "I was only on holiday."

"Tell me where you are, Crowley, I need to bring you in," Lestrade said, loudly and clearly. He'd been chasing him for days, with no leads. He couldn't let this go. 

"Hmmmm, no you don't," he replied. "I only rang first because we thought you'd panic if you got a call from a dead man."

There was a rustling on the line and for a panicked moment, he thought he'd hung up, and that he'd called just to gloat. After a moment, it became clear that he'd just passed the phone to someone else. 

"Hello, inspector," a kind, warm voice said. For the second time in five minutes, Lestrade dropped what he was holding. "It's me, it's Mr Fell. I am alive and well, and in no danger whatsoever, I assure you."

"I - bu - wh - how ?"

"I realise it's confusing. Imagine my shock when Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson found me and told me I'd been murdered!" He said, trying to make light of it and not doing especially well. "As my dear Crowley, who really is the sweetest and most harmless of creatures, said: we shall be returning to London very soon, and we can begin to sort out this strange turn of events. Yes? Mind how you go, Inspector. Pip pip."

The line went dead. His eyes stared vacantly across the room. Slowly, the phone slipped out of Lestrade's hand and clattered to his desk. 

There was uproar in London when they returned. Scotland Yard hastily withdrew the arrest warrant and issued Crowley with a formal apology, and began returning Aziraphale's belongings to him from the evidence lockup. The media hounded Lestrade, demanding to know how such a mistake could have been made. What's more, a manhunt had been launched for a man who wasn't even hiding, and yet they couldn't find him. Why was that? Incompetence? Laziness? Understaffing? 

Crowley and Aziraphale had been stuck at Scotland Yard for the better part of an hour, waiting around, giving statements, reiterating said statements, and being offered complaints forms. Crowley refused them. Aziraphale, on the other hand, filed about eight. He would have done more, but his boyfriend eventually took his pen off him, and told him that enough was enough. The demon was called over to another desk shortly thereafter. Aziraphale was about to reach for another complaints form while his back was turned, when a familiar shadow fell across him. 

"Ah, Mr Anderson," he said, straightening up in his chair. "Good to see you again."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yes, um," he said, "I'm glad you're safe."

"Thank you," he replied. Nothing was said for a moment.

"I suppose I was wrong about Crowley," he continued. His feeble brain strained for the right words. 

"Yes, I think so," he said, folding his hands in front of him, pleased that he had come round. 

"He may be an arrogant, unpleasant, and downright disrespectful," he said, glancing in his direction, and completely missing the sour turn on the angel's expression. "But he's not evil - for a vampire. I don't like him, but I'm prepared to admit I was wrong. You could still do better, though, if you ask me."

Aziraphale twitched. "I did not ask," he said steadily, his tone even and polite. A spiteful desire to strike back somehow took hold in his gut. "But if it's any consolation to you at all, Mr Anderson, I don't believe you were entirely mistaken about Crowley."

"I wasn't?" He said hopefully, raising his brows.

The angel's lips stretched into a wide, toothy smile; his mouth was crammed with rows upon rows of razorblade-sharp fangs. "He and I have become very alike, as of late," he purred. 

Anderson let out a choked, strangled sound. He looked ready to vomit, scream, die, and pass out all at once. Clearly unable to multitask, his body opted for the latter, and collapsed into a heap on the carpet. Aziraphale stood up, leaning over the desk to look at him. "Oh dear," he said, sounding very unconcerned. He sounded quite pleased with himself, if anything. 

Crowley came back over, and frowned at the unconcious forensics specialist on the floor. "Well... This is a thing," he said after a moment. He glanced up at his lover. "What happened?"

He gave him a glowing smile, full of completely human teeth. "I'm afraid I'm not sure, dear."

A few minutes later, after Anderson had been sent home for the day, they sat side by side in an interrogation room, hands entwined. "I thought we weren't under suspicion anymore," Crowley said, hostility crackling along every nerve. 

"You're not," Lestrade said. An nervous young officer they hadn't met before sat beside him, taking notes. "But there are few things that came up over the course of our investigations that we'd like to ask you about. For a start, can you please both just state your names? For the record."

"Anthony J Crowley."

"AZ Fell."

"Your full names," he insisted, rubbing his temples. "No initials."

They shared a glance. "Uh... It's Anthony... J - uh - Jaaaa... Janthony Crowley," the demon said eventually. His mind had drawn a blank for J names. The moment he said it, he kicked himself. He could have picked Judas, or Jezebel, or even Jibril. 

Lestrade stared at him. "You expect me to believe that?"

"You expect me to lie?" He retorted, tightening his grip on Aziraphale's hand. He stuck to his guns. No going back on himself now; Anthony Janthony Crowley it was. The inspector shook his head in resignation, and turned to the other man expectantly.

"My name is - erm - " he said hesitantly, glancing at Crowley. 

"May as well just tell him, angel."

He swallows his nerves and nodded. "Aziraphale Zira Fell," he said. He immediately noticed the blatant incredulity on Lestrade's face. "Inspector, please understand, Crowley and I, we... we originate from a - well, a culture, I suppose you'd call it, where having more than one name just isn't normal. I am just Aziraphale and he is just Crowley. That's it."

"What culture?" Lestrade said, still not willing to believe it. "You both have English accents, and as far as any records go, you've both been living in London for at least forty years."

"It's a religious thing," Crowley cut in. He picked his next words carefully. "We were both born into... into a very particular environment, with very specific rules. Everyone had one name there."

Aziraphale nodded. "Yes, there were lots of us, in the beginning," he said. "Sandalphon, Israfel, Cassiel, Jophiel, to name but a few."

"And what, this was some sort of family cult?" He said, then grimaced. "But it can't be, if you two are..."

"Ah! No, of course, Crowley and I aren't related. That would be revolting," Aziraphale said with a shudder. 

"We're orphans," Crowley proffered by way of explanation. "None of us were related by blood. Around half left, pretty early on. I was one of them. The likes of Aziraphale stayed behind up until... Well, up until around a year and a half ago."

"Yes, I've cut ties with them now," he said, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. "I can't believe I never saw how truly toxic they were."

"Hey, my lot were just as bad," he replied, drawing him closer and pressing a kiss to his temple. He turned to Lestrade and added: "Those of us that left formed a splinter cult, opposing the original group in every way we could. I've broken away from them too, now."

Lestrade held up his hands and fell back against his chair. "You know what, I'm not even going to ask," he said. "Neither of you have committed any crimes that I'm aware of, so you're free to go. Just... Let us know if you're going to be out of town again in future, all right?"

On the way back in the car, the angel and the demon struggled for words. "This rather got out of hand, didn't it?" Aziraphale said forlornly.

"A bit, yeah," he replied. For once, he was driving at a sensible speed. He was too distracted to risk 90 miles an hour. "Lestrade didn't know which way was up, when we said we were cultists."

They each gave a small snort of laughter. "Ex-cultists, dear."

"Oh, yes, yes, of course, excuse me," he chortled. Their laughter died down after another moment. "Time to call it quits, then? This whole detective lark?"

Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully, wringing his hands together. "Actually, Crowley, I've been thinking... Perhaps it's time to move on. Out of London, I mean," he said, quickly clarifying when saw the moment of panic on the demon's face. "We've been here such a long time. Since... Oh, the eighteenth, nineteenth century or so?"

"Something like that."

"It's an exciting place, I grant you, but... I think I might have had my fill of it by now," he sighed. 

Crowley pursed his lips thoughtfully. "All right. Where do you want to go?" He said obligingly. The needle on speedo lifted, just like his spirits did. "Edinburgh's very pretty. Birmingham's big, and it's got all sorts of interesting people. I'd avoid Manchester... I did a bit too much of a good job with that one, I think."

Aziraphale was glowing. "Actually, I rather had my eye on a little place in the South Downs."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who doesn't know, Jibril is a variation on the name Gabriel which is used in Islam, in reference to the same angel that appears in Christianity. No doubt it crossed Crowley's mind just for the irony.  
(PS it's not over! More chapters to come)


	15. The Last Hurrah, Pt 1

John stared at the shop. The sign said it was closed, but he knew it wouldn't be locked. Fell was very trusting like that. He hesitated before crossing the road. The bell above his head announced his presence, but no one came to see who had entered. He glanced from side to side. The shop seemed empty, somehow. All the books that had been stacked randomly across the floor were gone. He glanced up at the sound of rustling. 

"Doctor Watson," Fell said in surprise. He was holding an empty cardboard box, with BOOKS written on the side in marker pen.

He gave a weak smile. "How many times am I going to have to tell you to just call me John?"

"Of course. John," he replied, giving him a guarded smile in return. He dropped the box beside a shelf. "Do you mind if I get on while we chat? Lots to do."

"By all means, of course," he said, folding his hands behind of him out of an old army habit. Fell noticed (charming as he was, he could still be a smart arse at times), and gave him a wry smile.

"At ease, soldier," he said jokingly, as he began to take books off the shelves. 

He laughed lightly, and dropped his arms by his sides. "Sherlock did say you were an army man, too."

"Sherlock isn't always right, you know," he said, then glanced up. "But I admit, I was... I was a soldier, once. Of sorts."

"Any campaigns?" He asked, making conversation and trying to pretend everything was normal, at least for a few minutes. He wanted to just be a man, talking to another man about something they had in common. Just for five minutes, was that too much to ask? 

"Ah... Not per se, no," he said. He hesitated, then said "None you'd be aware of."

John's eyebrows shot up. "You were doing covert operations?"

"Oh do hush, dear boy, I'm not supposed to flaunt it around," he said, moving on to the next shelf down once he'd cleared the first. "I was more involved in, ah, how would you say...? Subtle manipulations of events."

"I'd never have put you down as a spy," he said admiringly, looking over the bookkeeper shamelessly for a moment before he remembered himself and averted his gaze. 

"That's rather the point, John."

"Right, of course," he said, his ears burning. He put his hands in his pockets to stop himself taking up another military stance out of habit. "Don't suppose you ever worked with Mycroft Holmes, did you?"

"I know that name," Crowley said airily, strolling in from the back room. He had another box under his arm, labelled the same. "Bit of a prat, if you ask me, but he takes help where can get it."

John stared blankly at him for a moment, but decided there was far too much to unpack there. Instead, he asked "What's with all the boxes? Putting some things into storage?"

"We're moving," Crowley replied bluntly, before Aziraphale could explain it more gently. 

"Moving?" He echoed, deflating. "How far?"

"Sussex," Aziraphale said, folding down the lid of his box and hefting it into his arms. He smiled sympathetically at the doctor. "We'll be gone within the next two months, I believe. That's the plan."

"Look, this - is this - our fault?" He stuttered out, feeling his heart start to crack. He'd just got Fell back, and now he was leaving again? "I know I never apologised for ki - kissing you, but I - "

"John," Aziraphale interrupted, dropping the box and putting his hands on his shoulders and forcing him to focus on his startling crystal blue eyes. It was jarring, to hear his first name from that mouth. "We aren't leaving because you kissed me. We've already forgiven you for that."

"You have," Crowley corrected, still surly. 

"We have," Aziraphale insisted. John sensed that this was still a sore spot. "We've lived in London for a long time, and we're ready to move on now. We're starting fresh somewhere else, and it's not because we're running away, we're just... in need of some new scenery."

John couldn't bring himself to speak. Luckily, he didn't have to. A text alert sounded in his pocket and Aziraphale pulled back, giving him space to squash the butterflies in his stomach. He looked at his phone and huffed. "It's Sherlock, sorry, he's asking if you - uh - actually, nevermind."

"If we what?" Crowley asked. "Spit it out, Watson."

He fiddled with the phone in his hands. "We have a case. It's a private one this time. Sherlock sent me over to see if you wanted to work with us on this one," he said, and shrugged. "I think it's his way of trying to apologise. But you'll be busy with your move, so I'll just tell him - "

"Tell him yes," Crowley interrupted. Even Aziraphale looked surprised. "What? We need a big finale, angel. We've spent a lifetime in this city, and it seems a shame to walk out on a low. What do you say? One last hurrah?"

He looked uncertain for a moment. Then, he softened, and gave his demon an indulgent smile. "Yes, all right then. One more, for old time's sake."

Aziraphale examined the note in his hands. He had settled onto the sofa in 221B like a second home, and felt rather wistful. He had spent many hours here, often late at night, beavering away to solve mysteries with his beloved, and his two new friends. He tried to focus on the paper. He banished all thoughts of staying in London; he wanted a quieter life now. Sherlock wouldn't be around forever, and it would be cruel of him to stay while John was still so obviously besotted with him. He furrowed his brow, forcing himself to look at the note.

It was like something from a film. The letters were cut from magazines, all different shapes and sizes, spelling out its threat: COME to st Helen Of MElbourne PoLicE not Allowed if i SEe HELP and people May diE

"Who was the recipient of this note?" He asked Sherlock.

"Our client, a young woman from east London," he said as he prowled back and forth across the carpet. "She has no idea who left the note, or why."

"If she's being threatened, surely this is a police matter," Aziraphale said, adjusting his glasses.

"You mean the same police who've just spent the last week trying to solve a murder that didn't happen?" Crowley drawled. He was spread out across the sofa, his head in Aziraphale's lap. The angel moved the note out of the way of the demon's face, frowning at him.

"In their defence, dear, it did look rather like I might be dead," he said, but he didn't really put much strength behind it. 

He gave a derisive snort. "Oh, please, that should have been the giveaway that you weren't. If I wanted to kill you, no one would have had a clue," he said.

"Charmed," he replied dryly, and looked back at the note. He ignored the strained expression on John's face across the room. Crowley was still plucking nerves, quite intentionally, to get back at him. It was working. 

The demon snatched the note out of Aziraphale's hands, examining it himself. He paid no mind to his peeved expression. "Come home, please help me," he said after a moment.

"What?" Asked three different voices.

"Look. The capital letters in the message spell out: come home, please help me," he said, pointing at the note. "Where's this client from, then? Where's home? Australia?"

"Her accent was from Derbyshire," Sherlock said, already on his phone, searching for answers. "There's a town called Melbourne there, between Nottingham and Birmingham. According to the client's Facebook, she went to school there."

"Then there's no time to waste, we'd best be getting a wiggle on," Aziraphale said, jumping to his feet. Crowley grumbled at the disturbance. He hesitated for a moment for he made for the door. "Though someone might want to let Lestrade know first..."

The Bentley had broken free of London, with only a brief delay on the M25, in less than half an hour. In the back, Sherlock spoke with their client, one Ms Eleanor Margrove, finding out all he could about her life in Melbourne. It was fairly inconclusive, so far. She'd had a normal childhood, no real trauma, and her parents had passed away years ago. There was no one left there that she knew, apart from some old friends. Sherlock shared his own deductions to supplement that meagre knowledge: she was reclusive, she owned a cat, was an only child, recently separated from her husband, and also definitely not heterosexual, which probably explains the preceding fact. 

"How can you know for sure?" Crowley asked, glancing in the rear view mirror. "Hope you're not stereotyping, Sherlock."

"Her girlfriend was with her when she visited the flat to give us her case. So yes, I'm fairly certain she's a lesbian," he retorted. 

"Just asking," he replied innocently. He accelerated a little more, veering dangerously around the sharp bends in the country roads. John clung to his seatbelt, looking only marginally more frightened than Aziraphale. 

"What have you done to this car?" Sherlock asked. He had grown to appreciate the Bentley, dangerous or not. It saved time. "It's not like any classic I've known before."

"Magic," Crowley replied, waggling his fingers sarcastically. Aziraphale shot him a reproachful glance.

"Hm. Doesn't exist," Sherlock said, watching the way the outside world blurred and stretched out the window. "Apart from parlour tricks, of course, but I can see through those like glass. They're dreadfully simple, I don't know why they've caught on."

"Calm down, show off," John said, breaking out of his stupor of anxiety for a moment to reprimand his friend. A wide, toothy grin broke over Crowley's face, and he reached across to nudge Aziraphale's leg. 

"You know some magic tricks, don't you, angel?" He said, alight with mischief. "Real magic, I mean. Proper magic."

"Oh, Crowley, I shouldn't," he replied weakly, with a slight smile. He knew what he was suggesting. "Don't tempt me."

"Come on, angel, let's see if Sherlock can see through them," he insisted. "I know you carry that stupid deck of cards with you everywhere. We have time to kill. Give it a go."

"All right, but you'll have to careful with the corners, or I'll drop them," he said and, surprisingly, the demon immediately began to drive far more responsibly. John relaxed, blood flowing back into his white knuckles.

Aziraphale reached into his coat, producing a deck of cards. He twisted around in his seat to face the two men in the back. Sherlock immediately demanded to see all the cards. The angel handed them over, and watched as they were counted, re-counted and then inspected front to back. Satisfied that it was just a regular deck of cards, Sherlock gave them back, and leaned into his seat with his arms crossed, and a smug glance to John. He didn't think he'd be fooled, even for a second. Aziraphale and Crowley shared a little smug glance of their own. 

Aziraphale fanned out the cards, showing Sherlock both sides. With great care, he split the deck into three piles, and showed him each. "This is called the three card switch. Very common, tricky to follow," he said.

"No, but go on," Sherlock replied airily.

Raising his eyebrows slightly, Aziraphale shook his head, and began to move the cards around in his hands, keeping them pointed out of Sherlock's view. "You're keeping your eye on the King of Hearts, yes? Watch it carefully."

He could see John's eyes following the trick too. He smiled. He did enjoy this; the cards in his hands, moving them around with little flourishes... He'd gotten far better at this than he had been at Warlock's 11th birthday, and he always worked better in front of smaller crowds anyway. He stopped moving the cards. "Tell me; which stack contains the King of Hearts?"

"The middle," both men said in unison. Aziraphale smiled, and revealed the card.

"Very good," he said. He'd let them have that one. "Now, again..."

He let them guess correctly once more. Then, on the final shuffle, he began humming to himself. He felt Crowley fidgeting in anticipation beside him. He pushed back his amusement quickly, and stopped moving the cards for the final time. He held them up, their backs facing the detective and his blogger.

"Now, where is it this time?" He asked sweetly. 

"On my left," Sherlock responded with absolute confidence. John nodded in agreement. They were right. Aziraphale silently rearranged the cards with a miracle, and revealed their new order.

"So sorry, chaps," he said, as Crowley began to chuckle beside him. "Better luck next time."

Sherlock sat bolt upright, hitting his head on the roof. "Ow - how did you...?"

"Just a parlour trick, Mr Holmes," he replied, shuffling the deck with the kind of sweet, angelic smile that only a true bastard could produce. "Would you like to see another?"

He narrowed his eyes at the angel. "Tell me how you did it. I watched those cards. There was no sleight of hand, and you didn't use any psychological preconditioning tricks. How?"

"Would you believe me if I said it was magic?" He asked. The demon gave another snort of laughter, though he still concentrated on the road. Even John smiled. "How about another?"

Sherlock crossed his arms tightly, his face a stony and determined mask. He nodded tersely. Aziraphale was quite pleased; he reasoned with himself that this wasn't deception, as such. He was just discouraging hubris. It was the right thing to do, really. With that thought, he fanned out the deck, proffering it to them both. 

"Both of you, pick a card," he said. "Don't let me see it."

John obligingly took one from the end, and held it close to his chest. He just felt impressed so far. Sherlock, taking this as a challenge, took his time. He ran through all the possible mind games Fell might be playing. After around thirty seconds of hovering over random cards, gauging his reaction, and then moving to hover over others, John lost his patience.

"Just pick a bloody card, Sherlock," he huffed. With a scowl, he snatched the eighteenth card from the right, and held it to his chest. 

"Remember your cards very carefully," Aziraphale said, folding the deck again and beginning to shuffle it. "Once you're sure you know what it is, put it somewhere I can't get it. A pocket is a good place. You'll need it again in a moment, Mr Holmes, just in case you were thinking about throwing it out the window."

Sherlock, who had actually been considering swallowing the card, just tucked the card into an interior pocket in his coat. John put his in his back jean pocket. They watched Fell carefully. All the time he spoke, he kept his hands busy with the cards. He was constantly shuffling, splitting, rotating and turning the deck. 

"Now, this is a little tricker for me than usual, since there's two of you, but I shall do my best," he said, with a sly glance over to Crowley. The demon was thoroughly enjoying the angry confusion on Sherlock's face. Aziraphale spread out the deck. "Count the cards, Mr Holmes."

His eyes flicked over them. "Fifty."

Aziraphale smiled, pushed them back into a solid deck, and handed the cards to John. "Now you count them."

It was an added torment, to make Sherlock watch the painfully slow process of John counting each card, one by one. It was a nice flourish; Crowley appreciated the extra mischief. His angel really did have an infernal streak, didn't he? Eventually, John looked up at Aziraphale in surprise. 

"There's 52," he said. He made to reach for his back pocket, but the angel cut in.

"Not just yet, John," he said. Sherlock snatched the deck out of his friend's hand, shuffling through them to count them, insisting that he must have made a mistake. But no, sure enough, there were now 52 cards in the deck. 

"Fan out the cards, would you, dear boy?" He said, grinning. With a wary glance across at him, he did as he was told. Aziraphale's manicured fingernails danced over the backs of the cards thoughtfully. After a moment, he plucked one out, seemingly at random, followed immediately by another. He did not take the full deck back. 

"Now, at the start of this trick, you both picked a card. I did not know which card you each picked, and you placed it safely out of my reach," he said. With a flourish, he turned over the first card. "John, you picked the three of clubs, did you not?"

He gave a baffled, admiring smile. "Yeah, I did."

"And Mr Holmes, you chose the Queen of Diamonds, yes?" He said, revealing the second card. 

Sherlock scowled. "That's not impressive. You just used a duplicate card," he said, reaching into his coat pocket for proof. He froze for a moment, feeling around for the card. "John, check your pocket."

He did, and was also surprised to find there was no card there. Aziraphale waggled the two cards under their noses, twitching his nose at them in a cute, triumphant gesture. "Tell me how I did that one, Mr Holmes," he said, taking back his cards and facing the front of the car again. Sherlock seemed to shut down completely, immediately retreating into his mind palace to replay the events of the last few minutes in his head. He needed answers, and would find none, unless he planned on accepting the existence of real magic. John shook his head with a tolerant smile, and rested his head against the window. 

"Now that," Crowley said with a grin, sliding his hand across to rest on his angel's thigh, "was fun."

Melbourne was cold, with a slow feeling in the air. They settled in a pub, with a handful of leaflets that John had picked up when they arrived. After a quick glance, they found plenty of information about the parish church (a so-called 'cathedral in miniature'), but nothing dedicated to any St Helen. 

"Perhaps the answer lies in Saint Helen herself," Fell suggested, pushing aside the fliers. "I remember her."

Crowley kicked him under the table, and he quickly corrected himself: "I remember reading about her, that is," he said. He got an odd glance from Sherlock. "Born in 248 AD, mother of Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman Emperor. She became the patron saint of new discoveries, with a feast day on the 21st of May, celebrated by the Orthodox Church. She died... Oh, around 328 AD, I believe, in Rome."

"That doesn't help us," Sherlock said. Part of his mind was still in the back seat of the Bentley, trying to figure out the card tricks. 

"Now hang on, maybe it does," John cut in. "Wasn't there a Saint Helen in Britain?"

"Saint Elen, yes, of the Welsh Church, but she is known in English as Saint Helen of Caernarfon. She died in 420 AD, if memory serves," Aziraphale replied. He ignored Crowley's snort of laughter at the number. He beamed. "Very good, John, I had forgotten about her."

John flushed slightly at the praise, and hated himself for it. "Blame it on Sunday school," he said glibly. "Anyway, I was thinking... There's double meanings everywhere in this case. The note, with two messages, the name Melbourne being an Austrailian city as well, and now the confusion with two Saint Helens."

"There's always an obvious meaning, and a lesser known one," Crowley summed up, sitting up to lean on the table. Sherlock frowned, as if baffled that he'd somehow been left behind. He blamed it on Fell's stupid magic tricks, distracting him. 

"It's a pattern to look out for, with future clues," said Fell. 

"Agreed. Fell, you're coming with me," Sherlock said, getting to his feet. 

"Where?" Asked the angel, baffled.

"The church. The note implied that Melbourne had connections with Saint Helen, and the parish vicar is the best equipped to know," he said, tying his scarf. "I need your expertise to fact-check what he's saying."

He gave a nervous chuckle. "Oh, Mr Holmes, I'm hardly an expert."

"You have seven pristine antique bibles lined up in your shop, and a knowledge of saints so comprehensive that you can recall the dates of their birth, death and feast days from memory," he said knowingly. 

"Those are misprint Bibles," he muttered under his breath in his defence, but the point was made. He squeezed past Crowley to join Sherlock. "And what about our bloggers?"

"Er - yes, Sherlock, what about... what about us?" John said, glancing uneasily at Crowley. He hoped his voice was putting across his desperation not to be left alone with him. 

"Find out about the town's history," he said. "Ask the locals. Gather data."

Crowley crossed his arms. "I don't take orders from you."

"Crowley, dear, don't be difficult," Aziraphale said, a stern undertone in his voice. 

"Ugh. Fine," he huffed, gathering the pamphlets up from the table. 

As they walked out of the door, he could have sworn he heard Sherlock smugly mutter something that sounded suspiciously like "whipped", followed by Aziraphale's gentle laughter. He glared at the detective's back, pointedly ignoring the awkward atmosphere now at the table. He tucked the fliers into his jacket, and finally looked across at John. The doctor stared back. He saw his own reflection staring back at him in the black glass. 

"Elephant in the room," Crowley said finally. "I hate you. You hate me."

"I don't hate you."

"Fine. Just me doing the hating, then," he said. He slid his glasses off his face, letting his intense yellow eyes burn into him. John swallowed his nerves, and didn't flinch. This was an intimidation display, and he knew it. 

"Hate's a strong word," he said evenly.

"That's why I'm using it," he shot back. He didn't blink. "Let me make one thing clear, Watson: touch my angel again, and I'll make you disappear."

"You talk a big game, but I'm not scared of you," he said, standing his ground. His clasped his hands together over the table. "I've met men like you before."

"No you haven't," he replied. He still hadn't blinked. His stare was relentless. John's medical training told him it shouldn't have been possible; Crowley's eyes should have been watering like crazy by now, exposed for this long to the open air. As it was, they were totally unaffected. 

"How would you know?" He said, daring to challenge him again. "I've served in Afghanistan. I've faced down the barrel of a gun and lived. I've seen crimes that would turn your stomach."

"And you say I talk big," Crowley drawled with a smirk. "I've seen Hell, John. Don't embarrass yourself."

Had John known the truth in that statement, he might have turned and run. But then again, for a man so lionhearted, even Hell wouldn't frighten him. So, he straightened his spine, and set his jaw. "Is that it?"

A dark laugh spilled over his lips. "Yes, John. That's it," he said, taking his glasses back off the table and sliding them on. "Come on. We have a job to do. The quicker we finish, the quicker we can get out of each other's lives, and I'll have my angel to myself again."

Sherlock and Aziraphale entered the church quietly, finding it empty. It was silent, and with a high vaulted roof, stone arches and beautiful design flourishes in the masonry. The angel gave a contented sigh. Consecrated ground felt like a breath of fresh air to him, in the same way that it burnt Crowley's feet. He let his celestial essence reach out, banishing a few minor imps and evil presences that were lurking around in the dust beneath the pews. You found them in every church, crumbling the stone and gnawing on the timber. They'd be back in a few years, no doubt, but Aziraphale always stamped them out where he found them. He still considered himself an agent of good, at heart. 

"Hello?" Sherlock called out. There was a shuffle in a side room, and a young vicar poked his head around the corner. 

"Hi there," he said, giving them a million dollar smile and coming over for a handshake. "What can I do for you gentlemen?"

"We were having a bit of a debate, actually," Sherlock said before Aziraphale could get a word in. "Just a point of theology, really."

The angel shot him a judgemental side glance. If possible, he liked to avoid lying. If possible, he also appreciated being warned beforehand if he had to. Shaking off his indignance, he turned and smiled at the vicar and played along. "We'd be very grateful if you'd clear it up for us."

"Ah, you're men of God, I see," he said, sounding pleased, and clasped his hands in front of him. "I'll do my best."

"We were arguing over whether St Helena or St Helen of Caernarfon had stronger links to the town," Sherlock said. "What would you say?"

The vicar blinked in surprise. "That's a tricky one. I've gotta say, my saint knowledge isn't great," he said. "But I guess St Helen is closer to home, her being Welsh. We don't put too much emphasis on saints here, you see."

"A-ha! You see, I did tell you," Aziraphale said triumphantly, bouncing on his heels and fixing Sherlock with a snide smile. 

"Yes. Well, this has been very educational," Sherlock said, vigorously shaking the vicar's hand again before dragging Aziraphale unceremoniously back out the door. The angel almost had to jog to keep up with him once they got clear of the gate, and was briefly reminded of hurrying alongside Gabriel.

"Any man who claims not to know about saints most certainly would not know the difference between Saint Helen and Saint Helena," he said with certainty.

"I agree. Did you notice his wording?" Sherlock asked, holding up his finger as if to touch the memory. "That St Helen is 'closer to home'?"

"Why yes! Just like the threatening note; it said 'come home'," he said. "Couldn't that be a coincidence? To say that it's a clue is to suggest he is involved somehow."

"He may be. First, we ought to give our client a call," he said, taking out his phone. "Let's see if she ever had a home in Wales she may have overlooked..."

John spearheaded the data-gathering, but wasn't doing especially well. The people of Melbourne weren't inhospitable, but they immediately put their guard up when a stranger rolled in and started asking odd questions. Crowley trailed after him, not giving much input, and attracting a lot of suspicious glances. Eventually, after yet another person had made a mundane excuse to hurry off down the street, he turned to the demon. 

"Are you going to help, at all?" He burst out. Crowley tilted his head in response, pouting comically. 

"Aw, getting tired?" He said mockingly. 

"Look, even if you don't like me, you said it yourself: the quicker we get this solved, the quicker you can move out of London," he snapped. "Now make yourself useful and do something."

"I have been doing something."

"What's that?" He said, irritated.

Crowley grabbed hold of his head, forcibly redirecting his line of sight to a street corner. The figure that had been leaning around it quickly withdrew from their gaze. "I've been watching," he said. "Someone's been stalking us for a solid half-hour."

He gave him a sour glance, breaking his grip. "And you're only mentioning it now?"

"You only just asked," he replied stubbornly, and brushed past him in the direction of their stalker. With a huff, he followed along.

They stepped onto the adjacent street, eyes sweeping the pavement. The shops were open, and a couple of cafes dotted the road, with outdoor seating and people milling around. Crowley straightened up, taking in a deep breath through the nose. He'd been tasting the air, trying to catch their stalker's scent while John wasted his time trying to talk to people. He knew it now. He was very good with smells. He sauntered down the edge of the footpath, taking in deep drags of the air, sorting through the myriad of smells. He found the thread he was looking for, and began to trail it. Just a couple more seconds, and he'd have it...

"What are we looking for? A hoodie?" John muttered, looking around. "There's at least thirty people on this street who could be them. We're wasting our time."

Crowley held up his hand for silence. He took in another lungful. 

John frowned. "Are you... Are you sniffing for something?" He asked haltingly. He gave a small half-laugh. "What are you, some sort of human bloodhound?"

"Yeah..." He replied absently, not really listening. He'd picked up the strongest part of the trail. It had the distinct wet, musky smell of men's deodorant substituted for a shower. It had other notes, like grass and mud, paper and ink with a hint of cat. It was a teenager. His keen nose mapped the trail as clearly as if it glowed in the air, and his serpentine eyes locked onto a head of scruffy hair, sat alone at a cafe table. 

He strode over, grabbing a chair from a nearby table and throwing himself into it. The kid jumped, almost dropping his phone. He stumbled over himself, his words becoming muddled as he spoke them. "H - hey! Who - what - who are you - doing?"

Crowley leered. "Bit of a personal question for someone you've just met," he commented snidely. The teen's eyes widened further, pushing themselves back in their seat as if they had forgotten they could just get up and leave. John appeared at the table, surprised and unsure whether to apologise to the terrified child. 

"Sit down, John," Crowley said, lounging over the chair without a care in the world, though his eyes remained fixed on the stranger across the table. The doctor sat beside them uncomfortably. "Come meet our stalker."

"I didn't - I wasn't stalking - "

"Then what were you doing?" He hissed, suddenly lunging forward with his hands flat on the tabletop. The kid flinched. 

"Crowley! Stop it, you're scaring him," John cut in, pulling him back by the jacket. The demon shrugged him off, but sat back anyway. "Look, I'm sorry - uh, what's your name?"

"Harry."

"Harry, I'm sorry about my friend," he said with a kind smile. Crowley gave a lazy wave at the word 'friend'. "He just gets a bit tetchy. Why ever it was you were following us, we won't be mad. We'd just like to know."

"I wasn't," Harry insisted, crossing his arms and staring hard at the floor. 

"Correction: he won't get mad," Crowley cut in sourly. He was usually nicer to children, but in the good cop-bad cop routine he was doing, he doubted John would be any use at being bad cop. "I will, though, if you don't start talking."

"I just - it was Phil, okay?" He burst out, his hands buried deep in his hoodie pockets. "Father Phil. He asks a few kids to keep a lookout for - like - suspicious stuff."

"Who's Father Phil?" John asked patiently.

"The vicar. He's pretty cool, big improvement on the old one," he said with a surly shrug. "He just turns a blind eye half the time if he catches you doing wrong."

"Why's he so worried about 'sssssuspicious ssstuff', then?" Crowley said, the alliterative S's getting the better of his serpent's tongue.

"Dunno. He only told us a couple days ago," he said. "He said that if we saw anything like... like strangers, poking around, we ought to say something."

"In return for what?" John asked.

He looked up through his stringy hair. "Just some money," he admitted in a small voice. 

"How much?" Crowley asked, rolling his wrist in a nonchalant gesture.

"A tenner," said Harry. With that, the demon reached into his pocket and picked out an expensive black leather wallet, embossed with a silver designer logo in the corner. He began to leaf through it, and abruptly slammed a pile of notes on the table.

"There's two hundred quid for you to keep your mouth shut about anything else suspicious that you see," he said. Harry's eyes nearly bugged out of his head. "There's more where that came from if you tell us about it instead."

The teen nodded enthusiastically, swiping the notes from the table. "Yessir, of course!"

"Good. Be seeing you, kid," he said, dusting off his jacket as he stood up. John spluttered, glancing between the teen and the demon before chasing after him. 

"What the hell was that?" He exclaimed as Crowley sauntered down the sunlit road.

"What?" He said with a shrug. "Money makes the world go round, John."

He huffed, pointing back down the street. "You just handed out two hundred pounds to a child like it was nothing! That was incredibly irresponsible," he snarled under his breath, not wanting to draw attention. 

"I won't run out, if that's what you're worried about," he said casually, stopping to inspect a shop window display. There was a lovely golden chain in there that a certain angel would absolutely love. 

"No?" John said incredulously, not especially caring. 

"Nah. We're loaded," he said, leaning down to read the price tag. Something different caught his eye, sparkling in the light at the back of the display.

"We?"

"Aziraphale and I," he said. John looked at him for a long time, as if surprised. 

"Never heard you say his name before," he said shortly, turning away from the jeweller's window to face the stream of foot traffic. 

"I like using pet names," he said distractedly. "Wait here. That chain is only £300 and Aziraphale would love it."

John scowled at the pavement as the shop bell rang, announcing Crowley's entrance. Two hundred here, three hundred there... He was dropping stacks of cash like pocket change, and no doubt he'd shown off his designer wallet intentionally. He was flashing his wealth, warding him off like a spitting cobra, out-shining him just to send a message. He needn't bother; John already knew that he had no place with Aziraphale. Instead, he would stay at home, in 221B. His place was with Sherlock, his best friend, with dark curls and high cheekbones and a stupid, insane, brilliant way of living life. He allowed himself a small smile at the thought, and a flicker of warmth sparked in his chest. He let it live; this time, it felt right.


	16. The Last Hurrah, Pt 2

Margrove was surprised to hear from Sherlock so soon. She was confused at first, when he asked about Wales. 

"I haven't lived there for years," she said. "I stayed there when I was a little girl, in a church orphanage. I don't remember much of it. I moved to Melbourne with my foster parents when I was, um... six, I think."

"Do you remember the name of the orphanage, dear?" Fell asked. The phone was on speaker as they loitered on a quiet street corner.

"Sorry, no. I can have a dig around for you, though, and let you know," she said. "It's bound to be in some paperwork somewhere."

"Good. Text me," Sherlock said, abruptly ending the call. Fell gave him a reproachful frown. 

"That wasn't polite, dear boy," he said chastisingly. He huffed in return, brushing past him to take up a brisk pace down the road. 

"Politeness is merely a tool of the ordinary," he said coldly, taking a sharp turn down another street. "It's inefficient."

"Politeness builds bridges, Mr Holmes," Fell replied, lengthening his strides to keep up. "Manners maketh man, as it were."

"I'm often told I'm not much of a man," he said.

"Proving my point, I think," he retorted snippily. He tugged in his lapels, breathing a sigh of relief as Sherlock paused in a patch of sun-dappled shade, beneath a standalone silver birch. 

"You and I are very different," he observed bluntly. Fell nodded, raising his eyebrows in a motion that was almost sarcastic. "John, he... he thinks a lot of you."

The angel sighed. Discomfort coloured his body language. "Yes, I realise that."

There was a moment of terse silence. Aziraphale knew that Sherlock was trying to find the right words. He could sense the complex inner workings of his mind, deeper and wider and more nebulous than most human minds were. Sherlock had always been a curious case, though. Usually, when Aziraphale met such a mind, they were cold and calculating, often unpleasant to others. They were geniuses, tortured by themselves, and then again from those who could not understand them. He had seen plenty of them, over 6000 years. They always fell into the grasp of the legions in Hell, eventually. But this man, however... The halls of his mind palace were alight with vivid, gleaming rivers of love, of caring, of a man still trying to be good. Sherlock himself, for all his intellect, didn't understand it. For Aziraphale, it was plain as day. Love had kept him human. 

"You love him, don't you?" the angel said. Sherlock looked up sharply. "Your blogger, Doctor Watson."

"Mr Fell - I - I think you've misunderstood. I consider myself married to my work and - " he began, but was silenced as the other man lifted a hand, silencing him. He had rehearsed that speech a thousand times, keeping others distant, keeping his heart under lock and key. 

"You are not married to your work. Maybe you were once," he said, his eyes twinkling knowingly behind his spectacles. "But I don't think you have been for a long while."

Sherlock went very still. He couldn't argue. Fell was smart, far from ordinary, and he knew he couldn't hide behind his intellect this time. His lips parted slightly, preparing to speak. "Is... Is it obvious?" He asked quietly.

"Not to him," Aziraphale said. He felt a deep, genuine sense of pity for him. He couldn't help feeling that he had got in the way, somehow. "I think he loves you too, Mr Holmes. He just doesn't know it yet."

He shook his head stiffly, his eyes unfocused, fixed on a point in the distance. "I'm too different from... from someone like you."

Fell raised an eyebrow. "Do you think that's a problem?"

"Of course it's a problem. It's obviously a problem," he snapped, speaking almost too quickly to be heard. He looked back to Fell's face. "He wants someone like you. That's what he deserves."

Aziraphale sighed. He wished that humans realised what he should have done, years ago: love is worth any price, any risk. Unspoken confessions burn brighter than hellfire, and can drown you quicker than holy water. 

"He could never have someone like me," he said slowly. He was an angel; many humans had fallen in love with him over his life, and he had never indulged any of them. He was immortal - and if he was being honest with himself, his heart had always belonged to another. "And in any case... I think what he really deserves is to know the truth about how you feel for him."

"I can't," he rasped, just as Aziraphale turned away to continue walking. It made him stop. "I can't do that to him."

He couldn't help but let an embittered smile reach his lips. "I remember thinking the very same thing, once," he said softly, and began to walk. Eventually, Sherlock's slow footsteps followed along. 

Crowley and John regrouped with their counterparts outside the pub. They updated one another, though Crowley noticed that Sherlock was curiously quiet. When he and John headed inside, he grasped Aziraphale's arm gently, keeping him back. 

"What've you done to cheekbones over there?" He muttered. "He hardly said a word."

"Oh, I pointed out that he's in love with John."

"You what?" He said, eyes widening behind his glasses. 

"He needed to admit it to himself," he replied defensively. "I know what it's like, buggering around trying to pretend like you're not in love, like you can't be happy. We both know. But they're human, and they don't have six thousand years to dance around one another. If they do nothing, then... then it's just gone."

He hummed thoughtfully. "Never thought of it that way," he said, glancing over to the two men by the bar. "So... what, are we playing matchmaker now?"

"If at all possible, I think so," he replied. He gave Crowley a suspicious side-glance. "You're awfully eager about the idea."

He shrugged. "If it means I have less competition, of course I'm on board," he said, taking his hand. Aziraphale rolled his eyes.

"It would only count as competition if I were interested in him, Crowley," he pointed out. "Surely you know by now that I have eyes only for you."

"All nine hundred and eight of them?" He asked cheekily. "Only for me?"

"Every single one," he replied, giving him a peck on the cheek. 

They settled around a table for some debating and musing on the case. Eventually, Aziraphale decided it was getting late, and suggested they settle in for the night. The pub had advertised vacancies for tourists, and for a reasonable price. John volunteered to get them, and collected everyone's contributions before he went to the bar. 

"Excuse me, do you have any rooms available?" He asked the woman at the counter politely.

Back at the table, Crowley flexed his fingers, working a quick miracle. The hostess flicked through the list of bookings, finding that there were a few more than she'd previously thought. She didn't remember renting out all the single rooms to anyone named 'Anthony J Fell', but there it was, written in her handwriting, and all pre-paid. 

"We have two rooms, both doubles," she said. "Is that okay?"

John gave a strained smile. "Sure," he said.

Later that night, Crowley and Aziraphale lay in bed together, basking in one another's presence. Crowley's head rested on the angel's chest, feeling his heartbeat and the gentle rise-and-fall of his breathing. Both were totally unnecessary, but it was a distinctly human touch that he knew Aziraphale enjoyed having. If he liked them, so did Crowley. 

"How do think they're getting on?" Aziraphale wondered out loud, combing his fingers through his boyfriend's fiery hair.

"Who, gay and gayer?" He replied lazily, his golden eyes flicking up to look at his angel. "Fine, I imagine."

"You don't think this a tad heavy-handed?" He fretted. 

"Nope," he replied, popping the P. He wouldn't usually have been so blasé, but he wanted to put him at ease. "Look, they'll either respect one another's boundaries and get some sleep, or they'll cave in and fuck until the sun comes up. We'll know which one, if one of them can't sit straight at breakfast."

Aziraphale tried to be stern and disapproving in the face of such vulgarity, but he couldn't. There was a pause, and he burst out into a fit of giggles. "Oh, Crowley... You have such a way with words, don't you?" he said when he eventually calmed down.

"Even better than that nineteenth century tosser?" He asked, a warm glow in his chest at the sound of his angel's laugh.

"You mean Oscar Wilde?" He asked, raising a brow, still half-smiling. "Naturally, my dear."

John and Sherlock both sat perfectly straight the next morning. The two supernatural entities shared a disappointed glance, and sat down for breakfast. There was silence for a moment. Aziraphale relished his food like always, having ordered a full English. John settled for toast, while Crowley and Sherlock forwent food entirely. 

"Sleep well, you two?" The demon asked eventually. 

"Uh, yeah. You?" John replied, once it became clear that Sherlock was too deep in his own head to have heard. 

"Not bad," he said, sipping his coffee. A wily smirk curved his lips. "Had any thoughts?"

John froze. His eyes flicked in Sherlock's direction. "Thoughts?" He said, a little defensive. 

"I think he means about the case, John," Aziraphale said helpfully. 

"Oh. Oh, yeah, um," he said, straightening up. He cleared his throat. "I know. All we really know is that the vicar's a bit suspicious."

Brushing aside his appetite for a moment, Aziraphale put down his knife and fork. "I've been wondering about that, actually. I wasn't idle last night," he said. He hadn't slept at all, in fact. "I did some digging about Father Phillip. According to the online archive of the local newspaper, he's quite the magnet for controversy."

Sherlock had now awakened from his stupor. "How?"

"He's the youngest vicar the town has ever had in its main parish church, which upset a few traditionalists," he said, taking a sip of his tea. "What's more, he's an orphan with a criminal record. Now that ought to be no barrier to anyone, of course, but as I said, certain individuals were quite affronted."

"Is that it?" He said, entinwing his fingers beneath his nose.

"Not nearly," he continued. "His latest headline regarded his recent separation from his wife. She left the town altogether, then came out as a lesbian, and began divorce proceedings from a distance. Local conservatives were in outrage."

Crowley sneered. "Small-minded pricks."

"Quite. But that's not all," he said. "His wife was one Eleanor Dawn, née Margrove - our client."

The four them retreated into Sherlock and John's shared room. The bed hadn't been made, and Aziraphale noted with distaste that the armchair by the window had clearly been slept in. There was a blanket, and a pillow with a head-shaped divot, on the seat. Clearly, they hadn't shared a bed last night, like he and Crowley had hoped they would. With a surreptitious flick of his wrist, the chair's stuffing became hard, clumpy and intensely uncomfortable. It wouldn't be used again for sleep, that's for damn sure.

He turned back to the other three. Sherlock had dialled their client's number. It rang three times before she picked up. "Hello? Mr Holmes?"

"Ms Margove," he replied in confirmation. 

"Good timing. I've just found the name of my old orphanage," she said happily. "It was St Elen's, if that helps."

The two consulting detectives shared a meaningful glance, and wordlessly decided to tackle that clue later. "That's useful," Sherlock said. "We wanted to ask you something, though."

"Oh?"

"Why didn't you tell us about your husband, Phillip Dawn, living in Melbourne?"

There was a long silence. "I thought he'd left," she replied in a quiet voice. "He... He told me he'd moved out. The rumours had gotten too much, and he'd quit. That's what he said."

"He lied, Eleanor," Crowley spoke up. Sympathy softened his tone. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she said, with a slight sniffle as the shock got to her slightly. "I - I thought I could trust him, is all. He's never done that before. Or at least I don't think he has."

"Is it possible he was behind the threatening note?" Sherlock asked, his voice loud and clear and hoping to bury his emotions beneath the case. 

"No. No way, or I'd have said," she told him. Her voice held a certainty that grounded her like bedrock. "For all his problems, Phil's a good man. He accepted it when I came out, and God, it broke his heart. I knew it did and I - I hate that it ended like that. But he wouldn't start threatening me for it."

"If it's not too painful, dear, could you take us through how it ended?" Aziraphale asked, maintaining an open and non-threatening posture even though she couldn't see him. 

"Uh... Do I have to?"

"No, of course not."

"Yes, it's for the case."

Aziraphale and Sherlock looked at one another sharply. They had spoken at the same time, in an uncoordinated mess of words and opposing tones, but the meaning carried. Margrove gave a heavy sigh.

"It's okay. It's not the pain, it's just... A little embarrassing," she admitted. "It all started because of you, Mr Fell, and Mr Crowley."

"Us?" They said in shocked unison. 

"Yeah. After that whole uproar about the cafe, when you got kicked out for being gay... I saw the video you put up on the blog, Crowley," she said carefully. "Everything you said, about being so proud of your community, and about London really being a safe haven for all kinds of love... It really spoke to me. I decided to go to London, and finally meet some people I'd been talking to online, on a message board for people who are still in the closet."

"Wow. Didn't think that video would have been so, uh, influential," Crowley muttered in shock. He rested his head on his palm, staring into space. He began to wonder how many other things he'd inadvertently caused, just through thoughtless words and actions. Aziraphale's gentle hand on his shoulder grounded him back in reality. 

"It was. Please don't feel bad, it was the best thing that ever happened to me," she said quickly. "I went to London, I met my girlfriend, and I just... I knew I couldn't face going back to Melbourne. I explained everything to Phil. He did try to talk me out of it, and he was distraught, but he came round after a day or two. He was always good to me, really, he was."

"He wasn't angry?" John asked incredulously.

"Well... He'd had anger problems in the past, but he went to anger management and got it all sorted out," she said. "His faith really helped him. He struggled to get set up in Melbourne, because of his past, but he's worked hard for what he has."

"Thank you for your honesty, my dear girl," Aziraphale said. "We'll give you another call if we hear anything more. All the best."

"Thanks. Stay safe, guys," she replied, and hung up.

They took stock of what they had so far. The client's spurned ex-husband had lied to her about moving out of town. A cryptic note with a double meaning had turned up at her door. The vicar had been paying off the local children to watch out for anything suspicious. Everything seemed to point beyond itself, out to something new. 

"Perhaps it's not Father Dawn behind all this," John suggested. "He might be trying to protect her, if he's on the lookout for strange behaviour in town."

"We could just ask," Crowley suggested. "I mean, he can't exactly deny it, can he? He's got to have some way to explain himself. Even if he's lying, it could give us some clues."

"Good idea. Crowley, John, you speak to him," Sherlock said, standing up and grabbing his coat from the hook by the door. "Fell and I will look into his criminal record."

Everyone in the room stood up, and began to don coats and gather themselves to head out. Everyone, that is, apart from Crowley. He sat frozen and stammering on the bed. 

"On - on holy ground?" He said aprehensively. Sherlock frowned at him.

"Oh! Crowley, I'm so sorry, I forgot," Aziraphale said, cursing himself inside. "You don't have to go, don't worry. I'll take your place."

"I don't see the problem," Sherlock said irritably. He had been hoping to speak with Fell again, and try to come to terms with their previous conversation. The angel shot him a sharp look. 

"Crowley can't set foot in a church. It's... against his beliefs," he said. He sounded somewhat unsure of the last part, but stuck with it. It was as close as he could afford to come to telling the truth. Given that they had somehow recently given various people the impression that they were a gay criminal vampire ex-cultist detective/blogger couple, one more quirk hardly seemed important. 

Aziraphale and John entered the church. It was quiet, like before. It was a weekday, and no doubt the bulk of the townsfolk were in work or school. Father Dawn was stood by the altar, arranging the items laid out and polishing away the dust. He didn't turn around; the church door, old as it was, swung open with surprising silence. It was clearly very well cared for. It was their approaching footsteps that alerted him to their presence.

"Hi there," he said brightly, giving them his full attention. "Back again?"

"On business matters this time, I'm afraid," Aziraphale replied. "This is Doctor Watson, my colleague. He works with Sherlock Holmes. We wanted to talk to you about an investigation we've been conducting."

The vicar's eyebrows shot up, and he threw aside the rag he'd been using for his cleaning. "Oh, I see," he said. He tucked his hands under his arms and looked at them both intently. "What can I do to help?"

"We spoke to a young lad called Harry yesterday," John said, picking up the conversation. "He reckons you paid him to keep an eye out around town."

Dawn's face was blank for a moment, before twisting into a relieved smile. "Yeah, I like to try to keep the local boys out of trouble," he said dismissively. "It's just to keep them interested in the community, make sure they're doing good."

"Aw," Aziraphale said, looking truly touched. John frowned at him in disbelief. Noticing, the angel shook himself and wiped the dopey smile off his face. "And... I hate to bring back bad memories, father, but are you aware that your ex-wife recently received a rather threatening note?"

"No, I was not aware of that," he replied. He did look surprised, but something about it seemed rehearsed. "Is she all right?"

"She is, yes," he replied. 

"Oh, thank the Lord."

"Yes, quite," he said. "Is there nothing more you might be able to tell us?"

"I'm afraid not," he said apologetically. He looked thoughtful for a moment. "If it's not too much trouble, sir, would you join me in a prayer, for Eleanor's wellbeing?"

"Gladly," he said without hesitation. He gave a sideways glance to John, who looked vaguely uncomfortable. "Would you like to go on ahead, John? You can update our 'other halves', as you once put it."

He quirked a small smile. "Yeah, all right," he said. He couldn't bring himself to argue with his soft, calm face. Ordinarily, he might have been able to, but angelic suggestion was a powerful force, if quite subtle. Aziraphale felt that Father Dawn was holding something back; something he wouldn't say in front of John. So, he had to go. 

John wandered out of the church in a daze. Aziraphale, as he was often prone to do, had gotten a little carried away with his magic, and sent him far further than he'd intended, without much intention. The doctor walked two circuits of the village, then three times back and forth across the town square, before finally coming back to reality in front of the war memorial. He shook his head. Dark spots swam across his eyes for a moment, and he steadied himself on the wire fence in front of him. He didn't remember much of his wandering, only that it had been aimless, and for some reason, it had seemed very important at the time. He frowned, rubbing his temples. He tried to come up with a medical explanation. Uh... He had been very stressed recently, he spent a week thinking his friend-and-crush had been murdered, and he was very overstretched in general. He was probably experiencing some sort of delayed shock. Yeah, that was probably it. 

His problems didn't end there. He heard running footsteps coming at him, drawing his gaze up. He squinted slightly in the light. "Harry?" He said, recognising the teenager. "Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Hey! You said I ought to tell you if something happened, yeah?" He panted, ignoring the question and leaning on his knees to catch his breath. John nodded, with an affirmative hum. "Well, I think there's a fight going on in the church."

John's eyes widened. He cursed loudly, and ignored the glares he got from nearby pensioners as he took off down the street, toward the spire that poked over the rooftops. 

Crowley threw aside the paper he was reading. "This is boring," he complained. 

"Agreed," Sherlock replied. He gave a huff. He'd asked Lestrade to pester the local forces for the official records, but he had refused. He was 'busy', apparently, and 'couldn't just do that for no reason'. So, he had called Mycroft, and ended up going straight to voicemail. He'd left a rather rude message, and hung up. He'd then realised he still needed his brother's help, apologised over text, and was awaiting a response. 

Crowley tapped restlessly on the table. He glanced around the pub. "Ever played tiddlywinks?"

"As a child," he replied, not really understanding where that comment had come from. 

"Watch this," he replied mischievously. He miracled a small bag of plastic counters into existence, and drew them out of his pocket. He set one down, took another in his hand, then pointed silently across the room. An elderly man sat there, an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and a pamphlet for the BNP sticking out of his breast pocket. He was half-asleep, his eyes bloodshot and flicking shut at regular intervals. Crowley took aim, and launched one of the counters. 

It flew an impressive distance, with the aid of a little demonic magic, and plopped into the man's beer. The tiny resulting splash startled him slightly. He lifted his head, his eyes surveying the room blankly, before he settled back into his stupor. A smile twitched at the edges of Sherlock's mouth. Grinning, Crowley launched another. It clinked on the edge of his glass, making the man snort and startle, before ignoring it again. Sherlock caved, and descended into a fit of half-stifled giggles. 

"Give us a go, then," he said, reaching for the bag of tiddlywinks. 

Father Dawn looked at Aziraphale for a long moment, after John closed the door behind him. "You're an intelligent man, Mr Fell."

"I hadn't told you my name," he said.

He smirked, turning and walking toward the altar. "You didn't need to," he said. Cautiously, Aziraphale followed. "I'd know you anywhere. I'd hoped you'd bring your boyfriend with you, though."

"He's here," he replied. There was a pause. "Why?"

"The note was just to bring you here," he continued airily, picking up the candelabra from the table. "The clues, all about my Eleanor... Her orphanage, this town, everything. I thought she'd have brought the case to you. I hadn't expected Holmes and Watson, too."

The angel narrowed his eyes. "You could have just called. I have a telephone."

The vicar gave a bark of laughter. Then another, and another, until he was roaring with hollow and forced laughter. "Oh, you are funny! Funny man," he snarled eventually. He turned to face him, adjusting his grip of the candelabra. "It's your fault. You and your boyfriend and that stupid bloody video."

Aziraphale began to back up. "Eleanor did not leave you because of us, father," he said gently.

"Yes she DID!" He screamed, launching the candle holder at his head. Aziraphale ducked, and it broke in two against the stone behind him. "She did, and now I'm a disgrace in my own parish!"

He lunged at him. The angel dodged, stumbling in surprise. The vicar grasped the lectern, throwing it to the ground in temper. The thin wood at the top splintered away from the plinth with an awful sound that echoed around the nave. 

"She ruined everything for me!" he screeched, advancing steadily as Aziraphale continued to back up. "Everything I worked for! Tainted!"

Aziraphale knew how to fight. He knew that he could beat this man to a pulp if he wanted, without much effort. But... He was an angel, stood on holy ground, being threatened by a man who had tried to reform himself, and who was now in terrible emotional pain. He couldn't bring himself to muster the intent to hit him. He was a principality, and a guardian, and a solider, yes, but he was also soft. That would never change. 

The back of his legs hit the communion table, disturbing the wine bottle on the edge. It rocked uneasily, swaying... It toppled over, shattering loudly, spilling red liquid across the stone. Crying out in surprise, Aziraphale turned instinctively. He choked abruptly as Father Dawn attacked from behind, his throat suddenly crushed in the crook of his elbow. His heart hammered. He tugged desperately at the arm, but couldn't displace it far enough to struggle free. He whimpered as his vision began to fail him. Pain laced down his neck as his windpipe was pressed closed. He had one last resort. A desperate cry built in his chest, rising up until it had nowhere else to go...

His wings tore out from his back, propelling Father Dawn backwards through the air. He heard the clatter of pews as he landed amongst them, knocking a few over. He collapsed to his knees, grasping the altar for support, dragging in deep and much-needed air. Angels didn't need it to survive, per se, but if it was taken away with no warning, then they were at real risk of discorporating. With a shudder of effort, he folded his wings at his back, and turned. Father Dawn lay, unconcious but alive, on top of a pile of overturned pews. With a sigh of relief, Aziraphale forced himself to his feet, and focused on the mess at the front of the church. 

"This won't do..." He muttered to himself. 

He picked up the sections of the lectern. Splintered wood knitted itself seamlessly back together under his touch, until it stood stronger and shinier than it had ever been before. Then, he picked up the remains of the candelabra, fixing it back together in his hands and laying it back in its rightful spot. He straightened out the altar cloth, and picked up the bottleneck from the puddle on the floor. He held it at arm's length, watching the wine lift itself into the air, hovering underneath it as the shards of glass rushed up from the ground. Once the bottle was whole again, he set it gently back down, away from the edge this time. He clasped his hands and smiled at a job well done. 

"Ah, now that's better," he said, with a self-satisfied flutter of his wings. 

He turned around, intending to straighten out the pews and then call the police. There was a light scuffing noise as his shoes pivoted on the stone floor. He froze. His feathers fluffed out in shock, his wings lifting automatically into a defensive posture. John stood in the nave. He had turned sheet white, his feet welded rigidly to the spot.

"John," Aziraphale said eventually, attempting a calm smile which turned out more like a grimace. "Um... How - uh - how long have you been stood there, exactly?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, you guys are really gonna hate me for this, after that cliffhanger but... there might not be an update tomorrow. I'm going to be busy with uni prep all day and I have no idea if I'm going to have the time or the wifi to get a chapter up. I'm honestly so sorry... I hate disappointing you all, since you've been so good to me, and so appreciative of my work. Hopefully we'll be back to normal after that little blip, though!


	17. Fear Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anything else, thank you all for your patience and support after the slight delay. This is a long chapter, and technically the last, so I hope that makes up for it! I'd like to dedicate this one to FocusOnScience, for all their wonderful support and heartwarming comments. You, my friend, are incredible, and people like you make writing a joy.

John's eyes flicked over the scene. The altar, restored and gleaming as if it had never been touched. The vicar, unconcious amongst the disturbed pews. Fell, with two enormous white wings sprouting from his back. They weren't fake. They were moving, the feathers ruffled and definitely real. He had walked in, just as Aziraphale fixed the lectern. He thought he'd been mistaken, at first. He was too shocked to say anything. Then he'd repaired the candelabra. And the wine, he'd made it float, and restored the shattered bottle around it. He choked on his words.

"Now, John, I can see that you're - ah - quite disorientated," he said, reaching out to him. 

John flinched away. His senses returned to him. He gave a shout of surprise, and turned to make for the door. He had left it ajar in his rush to get here. He was halfway there when it slammed shut, as if caught in a gale, though not a breeze stirred in the church. The bolts snapped into place by an unseen force. He skidded to a halt. His breathing laboured. He span around, staring wild-eyed at the winged man before him.

"Wh - what the hell are you?" He barked, leaning heavily against the doors, hoping they would tumble open against all the odds, and let him escape back to the real world again. 

Aziraphale gave an awkward smile, his hands raised as if in surrender. "I rather thought that would be obvious," he said, trying to joke. It didn't land. He cleared his throat, opting for seriousness this time. "Do not be afraid. I'm an angel, John."

He shook his head. "No. They don't exist."

"I find that sentiment rather rude, considering," he said sternly, gesturing at the wings spread out from his back. "I'm real enough, aren't I?"

"But - I - you - it can't - " he stammered, his nails digging into the wood behind him. 

His heart clenched even harder when Father Dawn groaned, cursing and stumbling to his feet. Aziraphale also turned at the sound of feet clattering against the pews. The vicar was delirious, but no less angry. Breathing heavily, he span around on the spot until he located the angel. His eyes were fogged and out-of-focus, and he didn't seem to take in the wings on his back. He jabbed a shaking finger in their direction.

"You... YOU...!" He wailed, lurching forward. 

"Oh please do stop," Aziraphale pleaded with a long-suffering sigh. He snapped his fingers, and the vicar crumpled unceremoniously back onto the floor again. He fixed the unconcious form with a distasteful, apologetic look; he didn't like doing that, usually. It didn't seem fair. 

Turning back to face John, the principality forced himself into a more relaxed posture. His feathers smoothed themselves down, giving his wings a sleeker, more graceful appearance. He put on his best serene expression, clasping his hands neatly just beneath his chest. 

"Let's start again, shall we?" He suggested calmly. He fixed the panicking human with a steady gaze. "Fear not. I am the Principality Aziraphale. I was once the Guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden. I am an angel, and I mean you no harm. Yes?"

John swallowed thickly. He was starting to get a grip of things. "You're... Is... Is God real?"

He tilted his head. "Of course."

All breath left the doctor's lungs, and he sank to the floor, slumped against the doors. "This can't be real. I'm dreaming, or hallucinating."

"I'm afraid not," he replied sympathetically. He took a few tentative steps closer. "Would you like anything? Some water, for instance?"

He looked up at his face, looking drained and overwhelmed. "I could do with a strong cuppa," he said, as a joke. His eyebrows shot up when a china teacup and saucer appeared under his nose, filled with steaming hot tea. He met Aziraphale's gaze in disbelief as he took the drink from his hands.

"Oh. You can actually do that," he commented, staring blankly at the tea.

"Yes. Miracles are within my repertoire. It's just right for drinking, by the way," replied the angel. He fiddled with his hands as John took a hesitant sip. "I hadn't intended for you to find out about... about what I am. Not like this, at least."

"Well, yeah. I don't think I'd have believed you anyway, unless it had happened like... like this," he said. His stomach churned, and adrenaline surged through his veins even as he sat immobile. "I have so many questions."

"Um... Well, death isn't the end, Heaven is lovely, you're probably not going to Hell, the Bible is mostly accurate with some glaring omissions, and - "

"Not those questions," he interrupted. The angel looked vaguely surprised. "Why are you here? Solving crimes, selling books, just... pretending to be human?"

It made his skin crawl. The thing in front of him, no matter what he looked like, he wasn't actually human. He was an imitation of human. No matter how convincing, he was something else entirely. John wondered what was hiding beneath the skin, under the flesh and bone and material things, beyond his wings. He had heard stories of angels in their true forms as a child: multi-headed, wreathed in flame, studded with eyes and encircled by wings. He thought that maybe, somewhere in those crystal blue eyes, he could see a hint of that distant fire.

"That's a very long story," Aziraphale said quietly, with a wry, bittersweet smile. "I've been here since time immemorial, you see. I was put here to do good, and thwart the wiles of evil. Things from there became, ah... a little warped. Things came to pass that no one had foreseen, save one particular witch by the name of Agnes. In short, I am now no longer welcome in Heaven."

John gaped in awe. He felt that he was standing at the edge of a vast and uncharted pool of knowledge, unlike anything he had experienced alongside Sherlock. These waters were deep, and frothed with more questions than they answered. His mouth was dry, but he dared to ask "What happened?"

"I fell in love with my enemy," he replied, a tender affection flickering in his eyes. He looked down, and saw that John didn't fully understand yet. "With Crowley."

The revelation came like a punch to the chest. "You mean... He's...?"

"A demon, yes," he finished, nodding. He gave a small, sheepish chuckle. "He's a very nice demon, though. I should know. I've known him for almost as long as I've existed, and I assure you, he's no longer affiliated with Hell."

His brow creased for a moment, as if something had only just occurred to him. "How old are you, then?"

He pursed his lips, angling his eyes upward as he tried to recall. "My, now that is a good question," he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "I think... I shall be turning six thousand, six hundred and sixty six this year."

John choked on his tea, spilling some of it on his leg. "Six thousand?" He cried hoarsely.

"That's quite young, for an angel, I'll have you know!" He said haughtily, crossing his arms. A few of his feathers stood up slightly in indignation. "Crowley is closer to seven thousand."

"We must all seem so... so... " he said, beginning to struggle for words again. "Tiny."

He suddenly cringed as he remembered his drunken actions, before Aziraphale had gone missing. He buried his face in his hand, setting the teacup aside. "Oh, god, I kissed you," he moaned. "Of all the men I could have - I had to go for the bloody angel, didn't I? I must have looked a right prick."

"There there, John," he said, patting him stiffly on the shoulder. "I don't think that you're a - a - what you said. It was foolish, to be sure, and Crowley was rather upset, but other humans have attempted worse. Once, during the Great Flood, one of Noah's sons became rather irate with me, and almost tossed me right off the ark and into the water. I would have drowned! I would have had a lot of paperwork to do upstairs, to get a new body after that little altercation."

He cocked a brow, not prepared to tackle the full strangeness of that statement. "What happened?"

"Crowley was there to smooth things over, thank goodness," he said, looking relieved even thousands of years on. "Then there was the time I was nearly decapitated during the French Revolution... I was in chains in the Bastille, in the dungeon, if I recall."

"How'd you get out of that one?" He asked, picking up his tea again. He was starting to feel more relaxed. Aziraphale's grand white wings had faded into the background of his thoughts, and his blood pressure was going down again. 

"Crowley found me, and sprung me free," he said. He gave a start, and held up a finger as if he had just remembered something. "Oh and of course, one cannot forget the occasion in 1941, when I was nearly shot by Nazi agents in London."

"And you escaped by...?" 

"Oh - um - Crowley again, actually," he said, ducking his head and blushing. "Dear me, I've only just realised how much I owe to that demon. I really ought to thank him more."

"And he's really not evil?" He asked, staring intently at the angel. "Not even a little bit?"

"He doesn't have the heart for it, John," he assured him. His expression became dumb and lovestruck all of a sudden. "He is the sweetest and most loving creature I have ever encountered. He has such poise and elegance, the like of which demons were said to have forsaken when they fell. Don't let his absorption in fads and suchlike fool you; his years on earth have left him with a brand of sobriety and maturity not often seen, even among us immortals."

Crowley bit his fist, desperately stifling laughter as the old man tipped his pint back and swallowed the large handful of tiddlywinks that he and Sherlock had been flicking at him for almost an hour. Many of them had missed, glancing off the bar, or littering the floor in multicoloured plastic. The bartender had noticed their childish antics after the first ten minutes, but turned a blind eye. She clearly had more important things to think about than the two middle aged toddlers in booth 4. Even Sherlock was helpless with giggling.

The demon's phone buzzed. Still chuckling, he checked it. It was John calling. He picked up. "Yeah?" He said, holding his finger over his lips at Sherlock to shush him. They'd get in trouble if he kept snickering. 

"Crowley! It's me," Aziraphale's voice said. He sounded irate. "Listen, there has been a - er - a development."

"Are you okay, Aziraphale? You sound worried," he said, poised to leap out of his seat and go running off down the street to his aid at the drop of a hat.

"Oh I'm fine, yes, I'm fine. Quite all right. Tickety boo, one might say!" He said quickly, overenthusiastically trying to hide his nerves.

"Angel..."

"John knows," he blurted out. Crowley gave a sideways glance to Sherlock, all laughter now forgotten. He stood up, leaving the pub to stand on the pavement where he wouldn't be heard. He could feel the detective's curious gaze on his back all the way there.

"John knows what, angel?" He hissed quietly, his eyes darting up and down the road. The pub door slammed shut at his back. 

"He knows what we are," he explained sheepishly.

"You TOLD - " he began to screech, but cut himself off halfway through. The noise has attracted stares already from passers-by. He dropped his voice lower, almost whispering into the phone this time. "You told him? What the bloody Heaven are you playing at, Aziraphale? You can't go around telling mortals these things! He'll go strange!"

"No he won't, Crowley."

"But what if he does? What then?" He argued, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he paced up and down the footpath. "Look, we both like him, angel - even me, for all that I think he's an idiot - but that doesn't mean we can trust him with these things." 

There was a long silence. "You like me?" John's voice said in surprise. "You told me you hated me yesterday."

The demon sucked in a sharp breath, and released it a moment later as an exasperated sigh. "Angel... did you put me on speaker and forget to tell me?" 

"I think... Perhaps, yes," Aziraphale replied. 

"Right. Fine. Whatever. John, don't get too excited and go around thinking we're best friends, all right?" He said standoffishly. "Just because I don't hate you, doesn't make you special."

"Oh don't mind him, John. He once pinned me against a wall just because I said he was nice," the angel said conspiringly to the doctor.

"That really doesn't sound how you think it does, angel," Crowley huffed, shaking his head. "Look, I ought to go back inside. Sherlock's bound to be getting suspicious. Before I go... Any luck with the case?"

"Ah - ha! I knew I'd forgotten something," Aziraphale exclaimed suddenly. "Father Dawn is responsible. He created the note not to threaten his ex-wife, but to lure you and I to Melbourne so he could murder us in revenge."

"You wot?" Crowley half-shouted. With a long groan, he slumped against the brick wall. "I swear, angel, you can't just go a century or two without nearly getting yourself killed, can you?"

"It wasn't just me he wanted dead! It was you, too."

"Oh well, that's all right then!" He retorted sarcastically. He turned his anger on the doctor next, who had tried to fade into the background, hoping they'd forget he was there. "And where on earth had you gone, Watson, while my hu- fia - I mean, my boyfriend, was getting attacked?"

There was a pause, and for a split second, Crowley was worried that Aziraphale had noticed he had nearly called him his 'husband', then his 'fiancé', before correcting himself. Luckily for the demon, Aziraphale was an idiot sometimes, and was clueless as ever. 

"Um... Well... I may have hypnotised him," the angel admitted reluctantly. 

"You did what?" John said sharply. "Hypnotised me?"

He gave an awkward cough. "A bit."

"A bi - how do you hypnotise someone, a bit?" he raved. There was a shuffling on the other end of the line as he got to his feet. "Was that why I was wandering around town like an idiot half the afternoon?"

"... Perhaps." By that, he meant yes. 

They remained one more night in town. The local police wanted statements, despite Father Dawn's full confession, and it was late evening by the time they were finished. By way of celebration, and perhaps to lift John's spirits, Aziraphale bought them all a nice meal from the pub. The food, usually underseasoned plain fare, miraculously became Michelin Star quality (or more accurately, Angel Star quality). Sherlock allowed the indulgence, and was privately glad to see Crowley order himself some food. He had grown to like the odd snake-eyed man over the course of the afternoon, which made his deductions about a possible eating disorder all the more troubling. He hadn't ever seen Crowley eat until now. 

John's thoughts were scattered across his mind. He picked at his steak, feeling Aziraphale's concerned gaze weighing heavy on him. Conversation flowed nicely between the other three; the doctor remained quiet. He eventually began to eat; it gave him a better excuse to stay silent, and there was only so long he could resist the temptation of such delicious-smelling food. As the evening crawled on, steadily becoming night, the pub became subdued and empty. Only the sleepy bartender lingered around, wiping glasses in the low light. 

"Sherlock," Aziraphale said eventually, after they had all had finished eating. "You must be tired."

It was more of a statement than a question. As if suddenly realising this himself, Sherlock slumped down a little, his eyelids drooping. "Hm... Yes, a bit," he mumbled. He tried to shake himself awake. Aziraphale redoubled his efforts.

"You ought to get an early night," he insisted. John glanced uneasily at the angel. Crowley, watching the scene unfold, had already sensed the magic humming in the air. Aziraphale wanted Sherlock to leave.

"No, I'm all right," Sherlock said, dragging a hand across his face. "Sleeping slows me down."

"It's supposed to, you prat," Crowley cut in, contributing his own power of suggestion. "Go to bed."

Sherlock immediately stood up, and made for the stairs without further comment. Demonic hypnosis was sharp and commanding, very unlike the calm and swaddling nature of angelic suggestion. Luckily for Heaven, sins committed under infernal control didn't count, or they'd have lost the fight eons ago. John stared at the staircase with mounting panic, and went to stand.

"Me too, I think I'd better - " he began, but found himself forced back into his chair, as if a pair of invisible hands had clamped over his shoulders. His heart clenched. He couldn't tell which of them was keeping him here, but it was becoming very clear that he wouldn't be allowed to leave until they were satisfied with... whatever it is they wanted.

Aziraphale folded his hands in front of him, leaning forward with a friendly smile, as if they weren't holding him captive. "John," he began warmly. "You seem to have gotten over the shock, from earlier. How are we doing, then, hm? Feeling better? Worse?"

"Trapped," he replied tersely, trying to force his knees to straighten out. No luck. He couldn't make it further than an inch out of his chair before being pushed back. His eyes flicked accusingly in Crowley's direction.

The demon held his hands up in surrender. "Don't look at me, mate," he said, jabbing a finger in his boyfriend's direction. "That's all him."

Aziraphale must have realised, by the somewhat betrayed look on John's face, that he was being a bit heavy-handed. "Sorry," he said, dropping his gaze down and withdrawing to sit bolt upright in his chair again. The invisible pressure vanished from John's shoulders.

"I think what Aziraphale wants to say," Crowley drawled, pulling off his glasses, "is that he's worried about you. You've had a hell of a shock."

John stared at Crowley. His yellow eyes stared back. The doctor was already beginning of fall down a rabbit hole in his own head, embroiled in anxieties and realisations.

"You probably have questions," Aziraphale said, breaking their mutual, uncomfortable trance.

"I've asked you enough," he said, a trifle sharply. He kicked himself at Aziraphale's hurt, deflated expression. Angel or not, he was the same man he'd known before. That wasn't an act, at least. "Sorry, but I've had my whole worldview turned inside out. Bit stressed."

"That's fair," Crowley said, scratching his neck and arching his back. After a long stretch, he draped himself back over his chair. "Look, we'll leave you be, so long as you aren't going to let anything slip. Capiche?"

He mulled over that statement for a moment. "And if I do?"

"Hey, be my guest, but you're the one who'll end up in a padded cell," the demon replied with a shrug. Aziraphale sighed disapprovingly.

"What we mean is," he said meaningfully, as if to overwrite Crowley's words, "we would rather you remember us like before. Think of us as human. We almost are, after all - at any rate, we've been on earth longer than any one human has."

John didn't have an overwhelming positive opinion of alcohol, thanks to his sister's drinking problem, but he still felt like he could do with a few stiff drinks right about now. He just nodded, exhausted. No doubt he'd dig out these memories sometime tomorrow, and think on them properly afterwards. 

"There's one thing I don't understand," he said eventually, lifting his head to meet Crowley's yellow gaze. "You're a demon."

He tilted his head slightly, as if considering the statement. "Hmmm, yep, I am."

"So - how did this..." he said, gesturing vaguely between the two men, "... happen?"

The two of them looked at one another. A couple of seconds passed. Crowley opened his mouth to speak, only to find Aziraphale talking over him. He stopped. So did the angel. Each of them then stumbled over their words, inviting the other to speak. The next few sentences were a garbled mess.

Aziraphale went first: "Well it all started in the beginning, the very beginning- "

"Garden. Yep."

"4004 BC, then it was the ark - "

"Big flood, that. Nasty business."

"We had that lovely picnic under the rainbow."

"Oh come on... It all really started with those bloody oysters."

"No, the church."

"Rubbish. What about the Bastille, then? Did those crêpes mean nothing to you?"

"Of course not, you silly serpent, but if we're going to talk about our continental adventures, one simply cannot ignore the great riots in - "

John loudly cleared his throat, stopping the rambling and nonsensical story in its tracks. The angel and demon glanced over at him, as if just remembering that they hadn't been alone at the table. The doctor felt like he'd just gotten a brief insight into what their dates must be like. He was suddenly very glad he hadn't pursued Aziraphale any further; he didn't have thousands of years worth of anecdotes to churn out, like he did. That, and a human dating a disgraced angel was bound to end in tears. 

"You know what, nevermind," he said with a strained, polite smile. He stood up. "I'll be all right. See you tomorrow."

They bade him goodnight, and continued talking as he left the table. He could hear them continue to bicker behind him, about when exactly they had become so closely entangled. From the sounds of things, to him, it was right at the bloody start. Shaking his head, deciding that it was as useless to try keeping up with them as it was with Sherlock, he crept into the bedroom. Finding that the armchair had become intensely uncomfortable all of a sudden, he gave in and crawled beneath the sheets by Sherlock's side. He lay still for a long time. Having someone else beside him, hearing their breathing, feeling a comforting presence... it kept him grounded. Lulled by familiar warmth, he dropped off easily into a calm and dreamless sleep.

By noon the next day, London was on the horizon, an unmistakable grey mass beyond the Bentley's windshield. Melbourne was long behind them. Father Dawn had been arrested, the local press had taken their final pound of flesh from their disgraced vicar, and Margrove had been informed. She had been very apologetic. Sherlock predicted that she would send a fruit basket, after she hung up. 

Crowley dropped the two of them off at 221B. Aziraphale could see John watching the retreating tail lights of the car, all the way down the road until they turned the corner. He sighed.

"I do hope he'll be all right," he mumbled thoughtfully.

"It'll be fine. Human brains can't think constantly about one thing forever," he said, as laid back as ever. He frowned. "At least, I don't think they can."

They arrived back at the book shop a few minutes later. They still had plenty of boxes to fill, goodbyes to say, loose ends to tie up... Crowley noticed the way Aziraphale had frozen in place near the door. He paused.

"Angel?" He said. He only hummed distractedly in response. "Angel, you know we don't have to leave if you don't want to. We can still back out."

That snapped him back to reality. "My dear, it... it isn't that," he said, releasing a shaky breath. "It's silly. I'm - I'm just going to miss this old place..."

His face creased, tears threatening to fall. Crowley was by his side in a flash, pulling him into a tight hug, hushing him with quite reassurances as his angel sniffled and wept. "Hey, hey. It isn't silly," he told him. "Are you sure you're ready to leave? I don't mind staying, if that's what you want. We can just do a holiday in the South Downs instead."

He shook his head, pulling back and wiping his eyes. "No. It's time to go, Crowley," he said insistently. "I'm ready for change, I am. It's just... hard, for me."

The demon bit the inside of his cheek pensively. "Well then how about we make our last month in London the best damn farewell party we can?" He suggested. Aziraphale perked up at that. "We can tour all our favourite restaurants, we can stuff the ducks in St James' Park until they sink, and to top it all off, we'll go throw a brick through the window of that cafe that kicked us out the other week."

The angel gave an undignified snort of laughter, shaking his head in mock disapproval. "We can't go around throwing bricks, Crowley," he scolded him gently. He smirked. "I hear Molotov cocktails give a far more spectacular light show."

This time it was Crowley's turn to laugh. He kissed him deeply, lovingly, admiringly, and pulled back to rest their foreheads together. "I love you, angel."

Over the coming weeks, the two of them did everything on their respective lists. They took selfies in front of all the famous London landmarks, most of them either very silly or sickeningly romantic. In fact, they ended up making out in the London Eye (and Big Ben, and Buckingham Palace, and... well, you get the idea). They uncorked a new vintage every night. They walked out of every restaurant they visited with a receipt as long as their arm, and a very impressed wait staff behind them ("but they're not even that big... how did they eat so much?"). They gave heavy-handed donations to every food bank on their radar, stocking them with enough canned foods and non-perishables to last them at least a year. Toward the end of their time in the city, they spent their evenings sat on the barren bookshop floor, drunk and in love and hardly able to keep their hands off one another. 

Tonight, though, things were quieter. Aziraphale leaned against Crowley's shoulder, nursing a mug of cocoa as they sat in a nest of tartan blankets on the floor. All the furniture had been packed away already. The demon was scrolling through the comments on their blog. Their final post had been online for just over a week, and the news was out that they were leaving town.

I'm actually sobbing... I'm going to miss you guys so much, London won't feel the same without you

DONT GO!!!!!

Man this is sad. Let's hope Holmes and Watson can cope without you two!! Best of luck to you both, it's been rough for you recently and you deserve some peace... We all love you <3

Hey Crowley can you just like, keep blogging, but about your personal life cause honestly??? That's probably just as interesting as crimes. I wanna see how the country bumpkins react to you both

Awww and we only just got Fell back, now he's gone again? Damn. Well at least you're not dead. Rock on mate, all the best 

SO MUCH LOVE!!!! You two have changed this city for the better so much you have no clue. We'll always remember you. In fact I'm gonna start a campaign to get a blue plaque put on the AZ Fell & Co building for you two. Check out the petition here: [link]

Crowley smiled. "That'd be cool, having a blue plaque," he said.

"Yes, I rather agree. Reply to that comment," he said, snuggling closer. "Tell them we'd love that."

As he was typing, the phone rang. Reluctantly, Aziraphale stood up, and answered it. "This is AZ Fell & Co, and I'm afraid the bookshop is quite definitely closed, for good this time," he said immediately. 

"What a shame. I was in the market for a misprint bible," Sherlock replied, with a dry humour in his voice. 

Relaxing, the angel laughed. "You'd have to fight me for it, I'm afraid."

"I'll pass, thanks. I don't feel like having my jaw fractured," he shot back with a smile. "Are you doing anything right now?"

"Um... Nothing in particular, I suppose," he said, glancing at where Crowley was hunched over the laptop. 

"No plans?"

"No... If you're about to ask me to join you on a case, I'm going to have to decline," he said firmly, fiddling with the phone wire. "I am officially retired."

"It's not that. Come to Baker St in half an hour. Bring Crowley."

He hung up, leaving Aziraphale frowning at the receiver. He wandered back over to his boyfriend, explaining the odd conversation. He closed the lid of the laptop, putting it aside. They held eye contact for a long, nervous moment.

"Did something happen?" He asked. 

"He didn't say," he replied, glancing back over his shoulder at the phone. Crowley briefly checked the news headlines.

"Nothing going on in town, besides the usual," he said, fingers tapping restlessly on the floorboards. He looked up. "You think Watson blabbed?"

"About us?" He said. Crowley nodded. "I don't believe he would. Surely not, I mean... He said he wouldn't."

"That doesn't mean much. He's human," he replied, getting up from the floor. He looked at his watch. "Half an hour, did he say?"

"Yes."

"Right, that's enough for us to look our best," he said determinedly. Aziraphale gave him a quizzical glance. "What? I'm not revealing my true demonic nature in my pyjamas. Come on, angel. Battle stations, let's get ready."

The outfits they chose were fairly close to their usual, with a few extra flourishes. Crowley chose a slightly more tailored blazer, and made sure the polished gold chain of his pocket watch was clearly visible. He glanced down at his feet, the snakeskin gleaming in the light. He wondered if he should bother with shoes... Deciding against it, he turned to Aziraphale. Immediately, he sighed and shook his head. 

"Angel, take that off," he said, gesturing to the giant, garish tartan rosette on his lapel.

"No! It's stylish," he insisted, fiddling with the ruffles.

"Nope, and I'm not going out with you looking like that," he said, plucking it off his coat and tossing it over his shoulder. The angel gave a melodramatic, offended gasp. With a flick of Crowley's wrist, a smaller brooch appeared in his hand. "Try this instead."

Aziraphale looked thoughtfully at his new accessory. It was a small golden sword, with a subtle touch of green tartan on the handle, and a decorative flame curling up from the pommel. He couldn't suppress a smile.

"Actually, I think do rather like this one better," he admitted. 

"See? Trust me," he said, brushing past him toward the door. "Now come on. We still have to be on time to scare the living hell out of our favourite arrogant git."

Baker Street was quiet, and dark. The sun had just gone down over London, and the street lights stared blankly at the pavement. Crowley squinted out the window at 221B. "It's dark. Looks like nobody's in."

Aziraphale hummed thoughtfully. "He definitely told me to come here."

The demon gave a snort of laughter. "Maybe we ought to go find Lestrade, tell him we reckon John's lost it and murdered Sherlock," he sneered. "An eye for an eye, right angel?"

Shaking his head, Aziraphale got out of the car and crossed the street. With a sigh, Crowley followed along, muttering about being underappreciated in his comedic genius. He stopped beside his angel, just as he knocked on the door. To their surprise, it swung open under his hand, having been left slightly ajar. They shared a worried glance. Setting his jaw, Crowley held a finger up to his lips, and took the lead. 

He was deeply comforted to feel Aziraphale's presence at his back, as he walked up the stairs. The shadows were playing with his mind. A little part of him always feared that he'd turn a corner one of these days and find Hastur waiting for him, with that slimy smile on his face. It haunted his nightmares sometimes. Even if that did happen, he'd still rather be the one stood in front of his angel, protecting him right to the end. He'd gladly give his own life, it it gave the principality a brief window for escape. He'd never told Aziraphale this. He suspected that he might know already. 

He approached Sherlock's door. With a deep sigh and a last, loving glance at Aziraphale (just in case), he reached for the handle and pushed it open. 

"SURPRISE!" A great cacophony of voices cried, and all the lights flicked on. Party poppers went off, and amidst all this, Crowley must have jumped three feet straight in the air, stringing curses together as he went. Laughter bubbled out from the crowd at his reaction.

Aziraphale handled the shock with more grace. Taking Crowley's arm to hold him up, he pressed a hand over his heart, smiled, cooed, then began to speak. "Why! What is all this?" He said brightly.

"Surprise party!" Lestrade said, grinning and still internally laughing as Crowley struggled over the shock. "Since you're leaving, we thought we'd all come together and give you a proper send off. It was actually John's idea."

Finally, Crowley took in the scene properly. Sherlock, John, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Molly Hooper, Donovan and a couple of guys from the forensics team were here. Anderson wasn't. Straightening up and trying to recover his dignity, he gave a half-smile.

"Should've known," he said, shooting the doctor a wry glance. "Nearly gave me a heart attack."

John laughed uneasily, while everyone else shared a genuine chuckle. It wasn't long before they began to mingle, and champagne was flowing. Conversation warmed the room, friendly and calm and peaceful. Aziraphale was enthralled in a conversation about knitting patterns with Mrs Hudson and Molly, and the sheer wholesomeness of it all had made Crowley need another glass of alchohol. Sipping his champagne from the other side of the room, he watched from a distance instead. He smiled. Aziraphale had all but adopted Molly, treating her like the child he didn't have. He'd never told him, but Crowley had once gotten a look at what Aziraphale's contact information was listed as in her phone: 'Cool Gay Grandpa'. What the demon didn't know was that his contact information was listed as 'Grumpy Gay Grandpa', and that it had all been the angel's idea in the first place. 

There was a light tap on his shoulder. It was Lestrade. "Hey, Crowley," he said. 

"Greg," he replied, turning his attention away from his angel. "Haven't seen you since you accused me of murder."

"Hey, that was Sherlock's fault, not mine," he said, sipping his beer. They shared a small chuckle. They were good friends, and all had been forgiven. "So what's next for the two of you, then?"

"Retirement, I think," he replied, putting his free hand in his pocket. "Village fêtes, crossword puzzles and badminton on weekends from here on out."

"Sounds like Heaven," he replied wistfully. 

Crowley's lips twitched into a bittersweet smile. "Oh, it's better than that," he said quietly. It's Earth, he added on silently. 

Lestrade fixed him with a quizzical glance. "I've never seen anyone so in love before," he said eventually. Crowley snapped back to reality, and realised that his gaze had subconsciously drifted over to Aziraphale again, who had wandered over to bicker with Sherlock about how he was (or rather, wasn't) taking care of his books.

"Come on, don't expose me like that," he replied, but with no bite in his voice. "I have a reputation, you know."

"Speaking of," he said, digging around in his pocket. He handed him a small box, taped shut. "Anderson refused to come, but he said I should give you this. He wouldn't tell me what it was."

Raising his brows, Crowley set his glass aside and took the gift. He picked off the tape, and slid off the lid. He couldn't suppress a bark of laughter. "Garlic," he snickered. Shaking his head, he put the bulb on the mantel, and Lestrade frowned.

"That's odd. Aren't you allergic to garlic, anyway?" He said. 

He smirked. "No, but since I'm leaving, I may as well tell you... I've been trying to convince Anderson that I'm a vampire for weeks."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "It was funny, and he got on my nerves anyway," he said, clapping him on the shoulder with a smile. Lestrade fixed him with a look somewhere between quizzical, impressed and amused. With that, the demon moved on, looking for someone else. 

He found John speaking quietly to Aziraphale. From the sounds of things, it was a banal, everyday kind of small talk. He sidled up, linking arms with his boyfriend. "Hey."

"Hello, dear," he replied, giving him a peck on the cheek. "I was just telling John about the blue plaque petition."

"Hm. Speaking of us... Are you going to be okay, after we go?" He said, staring intently at John. "Knowing what you know. Some humans have lost their minds for less."

He gave a breathy laugh. "If I was going to lose my mind, I've have done it years ago," he said. He glanced between the two of them. "It's going to be tough, to wrap my head around it. I mean, how much of the bible to I have to know about if I want to - um - to avoid Hell? No offence, Crowley."

"None taken, it's awful down there. There's a reason I resigned."

"As for the fate of your soul, John, I don't think you have anything to worry about," Aziraphale said reassuringly, clasping his wine glass in both hands. "You're a good man. Be true to who you are, and that should be more than enough."

John nodded, and gave a brief glance in Sherlock's direction. Crowley guessed that the 'be true to yourself' comment was very intentional, and the doctor seemed to have taken the hint on some level. He sighed and excused himself, going to stand beside his friend. Aziraphale leaned against Crowley, and the demon felt nerves run up and down his whole body. He had been on-edge for a few days. In his pocket, there was a box. In that box, there was a ring. He'd bought it in Melbourne; it was far too perfect to pass up on. At several times during their long farewell tour of London, he'd nearly popped the question. The time never seemed right. It was never quite personal enough. He needed this to be perfect, because Aziraphale deserved it to be perfect.

The sound of a fork clinking against a glass broke him from his thoughts. It was Mrs Hudson, calling for silence. The room fell quiet, and she beamed at them all. 

"Now since we're all here, I thought it would only be right to say a few words," she said. "We're all here tonight because two of our dearest friends will be leaving us. Now I know I'm just a silly old landlady, and I don't know much, but it would take a fool not to notice what lovely young men these two are."

The two of them chuckled as she gestured to them. They had a combined age of nearly fourteen thousand years, but it was a sweet sentiment all the same. She began to get misty eyes as she looked at them. "You've done us all a world of good, you two," she said, addressing them directly, starting to get choked up. "And I think you might have taught Sherlock a thing or two, as well, Mr Fell."

He smiled. "Oh Martha, you're too kind," he replied, shooting a smug little glance at Sherlock as the other guests laughed gently. 

"All right, Mrs Hudson, that's quite enough from you," Sherlock said suddenly, sweeping her out of the empty space in the living room. He beckoned the demon over. "Crowley, your turn. Or Fell. Don't care."

To Crowley's surprise, Aziraphale dragged them both into the middle of the room. He stood, looking around a little awkwardly, as his angel began to speak. "I'd just like to begin by saying what a wonderful time we've both had in these last few months," he began, his sweetest and most angelic smile upon his face. "Now, the road had occasionally been a tad rough, but we couldn't ask for better friends to help us on our way. It has been our pleasure, and our privilege, to have known you all."

"He means you, John," Sherlock said snidely, nudging his friend's arm. Most everyone laughed at that, and even Donovan smirked into her wine glass. John returned the friendly shove, a tolerant smile on his face. 

Crowley cleared his throat as the laughs died down. "Uh... I'd like to add to that," he said. His fingers flexed nervously. He'd never liked crowds; they were always just a few pitchforks away from being a mob. "I'm not one for speeches, so I'll keep it short. You lot may have been irritating, slow, boring, and also wrongly accused me of murder..."

"Crowley!" Aziraphale hissed scoldingly. Sherlock nodded along to his words appreciatively.

"... But somehow, you've all managed to be charming enough that I still like you. All of you," he said, his eyes lingering meaningfully, and forgivingly, on John for a moment. "I'm a private man, but I can honestly say that I'll miss having you around to share our lives with. So... I wanted to share one last moment. One last... one last thing."

His throat had gone totally dry. For a split second, his eyes flicked over the crowd. Could he still back out? Play it off as a joke? Judging by the intent and curious expressions around the room, the answer was a resounding 'No'. They knew something was up. Sherlock had probably already guessed. As he turned to face Aziraphale, he slid his glasses off, letting his amber eyes betray his vulnerability. He was vaguely aware of a light gasp from someone in the room. He ignored it. Aziraphale frowned slightly, not quite sure what was going on now. Crowley chanted two words in his head, over and over again: fear not, fear not, fear not... He slowly reached into his pocket, and got down on one knee. There was a strangled cry of excitement from Mrs Hudson.

"Angel," he said, voice shaking slightly as he flicked the box open. "Will you marry me?"

Aziraphale was choking on his words, his blue eyes stretched as wide as they could go. The silence was the most terrifying thing Crowley had ever heard, and he'd listened to the furious voice of Satan on the botched Judgement Day. 

"Cr - C - I - " the angel stuttered. He shook his head to clear it, and finally blurted out: "Yes! Yes, of course, you idiot, why didn't you ask sooner?"

All the strength dropped out of the demon's body. He nearly slumped to the ground in relief, but had the presence of mind to stop himself at the last minute. Every muscle in his body was shivering as Aziraphale pulled him to his feet, dragging him into his embrace while their friends cheered in the background. He vaguely registered the sound of a camera shutter somewhere in the room. Good, he thought, smiling; one for the album. His hands shaking, he slipped the ring onto Aziraphale's finger, and the women (plus Lestrade) all crowded around to see it. It was gold, like the rest of the angel's jewellery, and masterfully crafted to resemble a serpent, curling around his finger with clusters of sizeable diamonds nestled amongst its coils. 

Eventually, the detective inspector turned and wrapped an arm around Crowley's shoulders. "Congratulations, mate. Looks like this farewell party just turned into an engagement party!" He said. "More champagne!"

"Hear hear!" Aziraphale responded, still trapped amongst the clamour surrounding his ring. 

"You heard the man, Sherlock," Lestrade said, grinning. With a huff, and half-hearted complaints about sentiment (whilst already mentally planning the perfect wedding gift), he went to fetch another bottle. He'd be surprised to find that some very, very expensive champagne had miraculously appeared in his kitchen, a single bottle of which would last them all deep into the night...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One. Last. Update.  
(Meaning: I'll be posting an epilogue tomorrow... I couldn't just leave it here, could I? 😊)


	18. Epilogue: One Last Miracle

Life in the South Downs was all that they had hoped. Their neighbours quickly learned to get used to Crowley shouting at his plants, and to stop calling the police when there was a small explosion every now and then, anytime that Aziraphale attempted to cook. Their wedding day was a somewhat humble, but very touching, day, with only minimal drama involved. John, Sherlock and all their London friends had come along to the ceremony, and most of them couldn't remember the evening party by the next morning, so it must have been good. Life was, seemingly, perfect.

That is... until one day, dozing in his armchair, Crowley felt an unusual tingle run down his spine. It jolted him awake. Aziraphale glanced up from his book, giving him a concerned look over his glasses. "Are you all right, dear?"

"Um... I'm not sure... " he mumbled. He frowned. He hadn't felt anything like that since he had quit working for Hell. Slowly, he stood up. "I need to go check on something. I'll be right back."

"Be safe, won't you?" He replied. He was a tad worried, but he always trusted that Crowley would look after himself. The demon nodded vaguely, and vanished from the living room. 

He reappeared many miles away, close to the source of the metaphysical disturbance. Wind tugged at his jacket. Glancing over the edge of the precipice he stood on, he realised he was in London again. What was this building he was stood on again? A hospital, wasn't it? His serpentine eyes turned and landed on two figures, stood nearby. They stood close to one another, eyes locked in either an intimate exchange or a deadly confrontation. It could have been both. He recognised the mess of dark curls, and dramatic coat, easily. It was Sherlock. The man with him looked familiar, too. He knew those dark eyes, the mad twitch in his micro-expressions, the crazed aura of genius mottled with evil... He was the young Irishman, in the alley all those years ago. Crowley narrowed his eyes. He suddenly realised what had caused the unrest. 

He had broken his deal. He had agreed not to get his hands dirty; it had been in the contract. He'd been warned. Yet, here he was, standing on a rooftop, making threats in person, having been personally committing crimes for weeks already. He had been supposed to keep his distance. The boundary had been crossed. Moriarty had known, of course; he wasn't stupid. He hadn't forgotten. His problem - his Final Problem - was that he was just so bored. He was so incredibly done with the insipid, stagnant crawl of life. He had been intentionally pushing his luck for years, just to see how far he could go before the demon came for him. It was a thrill. When he ran the ultimate risk, with his immortal soul on the line, he could finally feel something again. As he stood close to his rival, a dark shape swam into focus in his peripheral vision. A tall, lean figure stood behind Sherlock. He was back. 

Moriarty froze for a split second. He hadn't seen the demon for many years. He had almost forgotten the blazing yellow of his eyes; they looked different now, in the daylight. Jim had been expecting a light show: fire, sulphur, lightning... There was only silence, and the watery daylight filtering down from the greyish sky. Crowley didn't shout, or snarl, nor even frown. Instead, he raised his chin, a distinct downturn on the edge of his lips. He wasn't angry. He was disappointed, sad, remorseful... A flicker of a smile appeared on Moriarty's face. This was even better than a an infernal telling-off. It meant that it didn't matter anymore, what he did. It meant that it was time. 

"As long as I'm alive, you can still save your friends," he said, turning his eyes back on Sherlock. He reiterated the point mostly to bring the silent demon up to speed. "Good luck with that."

Crowley shut his eyes, flinching at the sound of the gunshot. He let out a long sigh. He had seen the end of a long and painful story, there, and he couldn't help feel at least partly responsible. His eyelids flicked back open. Sherlock had jumped backward. He turned, staring straight through Crowley. He couldn't see him. The demon had chosen to be invisible; teleporting into an unknown location was always dangerous, if people could see you. Better to walk unseen.

He walked over to Moriarty's body. Blood spilled out of the back of his head. He resisted the urge to poke him with his foot. There was no point; he wasn't coming back any time soon. Hell didn't have a habit of letting a soul go, once they had it. He mulled over his last words. What had he done to Sherlock's friends? Was John at risk? Lestrade? Hudson? Possibly. He crouched beside the body, frowning at it as if it might sit up and start to explain it all to him. In way, it did. Crowley mentally reached out to the brain, most of which was gone, and began to pick through the echoes of the man it had once been. What he found made his stomach turn: James Moriarty, consulting criminal, First Class Arsehole, and one of the finest specimens of evil that humanity had to offer. The power he had held was phenomenal, his connections wide-reaching and invasive. Regret twisted his gut. This was his fault. He had allowed this, he'd enabled it. He had do something... But he couldn't just appear out of thin air to Sherlock, announce the supernatural was real, and offer his help. He needed a better plan. He glanced over his shoulder, as if only just remembering Sherlock was there. He hadn't been listening to what he was saying.

He had a phone to his ear. His shoulders rose and fell as his breathing laboured. Was he... Was he crying?

"Goodbye, John," he said, and tossed the phone onto the roof behind him. His arms spread out and, with his coat billowing behind him like the wind itself had been painted black, he fell. 

Crowley let out a loud, strangled cry. He lurched toward the edge of the roof, grasping at the air, trying in vain to catch him. The concrete ledge slammed on his chest as he slumped against it, staring in disbelief. His arm hung over the edge of the building, as if still reaching out to save him. Sherlock's body lay on the pavement below. He was dead. He had felt it: the last telltale spark of energy as his life was snuffed out on the stone. He shook his head, mouth hanging open. This couldn't be right. 

Another scream made him look up. It was John; charging through the crowd, trying to reach the body, weak with grief. Crowley's heart broke. He knew the feeling. His sharp eyes swept the scene, aching with sympathy as the doctor felt for Sherlock's pulse. Bystanders clutched at him, holding him back. Paramedics were already taking the corpse. Memories of a burning bookshop flickered in his mind: the heat, the shock, the fear, the denial and then... despite the flames, the cold weight of loss settling around him. 

Pushing himself up from the ledge, he tugged his blazer straight again. He set his jaw. John loved Sherlock, Sherlock loved John. It didn't matter what form that took: as flat mates, friends, lovers, or anything else. Regardless, they needed one another, like he needed Aziraphale. He would not, and could not, let them suffer like he had suffered. They were his friends. If nothing else, he owed it to them to honour that. Two black wings unfolded behind him, deeper black than a winter night, and just as cold. With a small run-up, he jumped from the ledge of St Bart's, gliding earthward into the scene below with his dark feathers fluttering in the wind, just as Sherlock's coat-tails had done. 

When Sherlock landed, nothing had hurt. For one incredible moment, he thought he had survived. There had always been cases of one-in-a-million incredible escapes from certain death, for no other reason than dumb luck. John would come over, Sherlock would give him some lie about how he knew he'd survive, John would call him a bloody idiot and then they'd go home. They would be able to live without the shadow of Moriarty hanging over them. Then he'd pushed himself off the ground, and watched as his body refused to come with him. He stood over his own corpse, unmoving. No. No, no...

He stumbled back. John had checked his pulse. Was this an out of body experience? Could he just... go back? Wake up? He pinched himself, but felt nothing. He touched his crumpled body, finding his hand just flickered right through it. The sound of the gurney wheels made him feel hollow as he watched it get taken away. He couldn't bear to look at John. He was already destroyed; a broken man. It was his fault. He'd jumped. Had he really saved his friends, or condemned them? 

A shadow passed over him. Something fluttered overhead. He squinted up into the bright sky instinctively, wondering if this was Death. He had assumed life afterwards hadn't existed, but clearly, he had been wrong. If nothing else, he'd at least know which religion had been right, in the end. He'd renounced them all, though, so he assumed he was destined for eternal damnation no matter which it was. He fought to stay calm. Everything was lost. He had been wrong, all his life laughing in face of faith... A heavy weight dropped to the ground behind him. A long shadow stretched across the ground into his vision. It was a man; or man-shaped. Hesitating only for a moment, he turned, standing tall to accept his fate with dignity.

"Crowley?" He exclaimed, taken aback, confused, and a whole host of other emotions that he didn't have words for. Sherlock's head reeled at the sight of his enormous charcoal wings, and the yellow eyes suddenly took on a whole new significance. He might have vomited, but he had no body.

"Sherlock," he replied with a slight inclination of his head. He glanced back up at the roof of Bart's with a nonchalant whistle of appreciation. "Nasty fall, that. I know the feeling."

"What's going on?" Sherlock said, backing away. He was doubting everything. His senses, his logic, his whole being... He didn't know what was real. It was like the ground was crumbling under his feet. 

"You're dead," he replied simply. He didn't seem to take any pleasure in that, which was slightly comforting. 

"Why are you here?" He asked, eyes flicking up and down him, making deductions that were no different than the ones he'd made when alive. He tried to stop himself. He couldn't trust his deductions anymore, and that realisation stung like a deep betrayal. "How?"

"I'm a demon," he said, tucking his hands in his pockets and beginning to circle him in long, casual strides. Sherlock span on the spot, not letting him out of his sight. "And I just-so-happened to be in the neighbourhood."

"You're here to collect me, then? For Hell," he said, raising his chin. He had to presume something; it gave him the fiction of normality. It was his best guess. "I imagine you aren't really Crowley. You've just taken the form of someone I'd recognise."

"Collecting souls, that's not my job. And for the record, I have no idea whether you're bound for upstairs or down," he said, coming to a halt in front of him again. "Secondly, I am Crowley. You can't fake hair this good."

Sherlock mulled over the possibility. It would put a lot of details in context. "Then what about Aziraphale? Is he aware he married a - ?" He began, then cut himself off as a realisation hit him like a train. The white clothes, the pet name, the bibles... "Bollocks. He's an angel, isn't he?"

"Bang on. I see you haven't lost your edge," he said with a smirk. Sherlock shook his head in disbelief, muttering to himself about that bloody card trick, and that this explained lot. He was descending into crisis, very quickly. Amusing as it was, Crowley had to interrupt. "Now, listen to me, Sherlock... You don't have forever to stand here talking to me. Death's coming for you, very soon. I want to make you an offer."

He snorted, crossing his arms stubbornly. "What? My soul in exchange for an extra ten years of life?" He guessed, hysteria growing like mould in his voice. "Thanks, but I'll take my chances with Death."

"Not that!" He hissed, glancing over his shoulder as if the reaper would appear at any moment. He drew close to Sherlock. "I don't want your soul. I want you to fix my mistakes."

"What?"

"Listen, the man on the roof... His name was Adam Worth. I made a deal with him, years ago... I gave him immunity," he confessed. Sherlock stared for a moment, and his eyes hardened into a glare. "All his crimes, everything he ever did... I took his soul, and no jury would ever put him down for them." 

"This is your fault," he said. He drew himself up taller. Anger boiled in his tone. "I'm dead because of you! You put hundreds of lives in danger!"

"Yeah, I know. I bloody know that. I'm sorry. I didn't want this," he replied sharply, gesturing broadly around. The guilt was eating at him already, he didn't need to be reminded. "But I can't bring you back to life without a deal, and a deal goes two ways. If I give you something substantial, you need to give something of equal worth in return, or it doesn't work."

Sherlock looked thoughtful for a moment, pushing back his rage. Even if it was all his fault, Crowley was the only one here. No one else had come. He was out of options. "What did you have in mind?"

With a sigh of relief, Crowley stepped back out of his personal space. "Simple. Dismantle everything that he did," he said, nodding up toward where Moriarty's corpse lay on the roof above. "Make it like he never existed, so he can never hurt anyone else again. Dismantle the web. In return, I'll bring you back to life."

"But, John, he..." He said. He looked behind him, but the doctor was gone. He stared at the empty space where he had stood. How had he missed him? Could fate not have permitted him just one more glance, one last longing look...? His chest felt hollow, empty, without closure. 

"You can go back to him, when you're done," Crowley bargained from behind him. He let those words hang poignantly in the air for a moment. "Hold up your end of the deal, and you're free. You get another shot at life."

He slowly turned his eyes back to the demon. "Well?" Crowley said, holding out his hand expectantly. He held him in a firm, steady yellow gaze. "Do we have a deal?"

Sherlock's tongue swiped over his lips. It was a nervous gesture of the living; as an immaterial soul, it did nothing. He wouldn't get this chance ever again, to start over. He hadn't expected it. Who would? He recalled his first thoughts, upon hitting the ground. He thought he'd get to go home with John, have tea and a laugh and keep on going like they always had; just the two of them against the world. He could still have that. It was within reach. All he needed to do was take the risk; one more leap, of faith this time. He had to trust that John would do the same; that he'd wait for him. It was all he had left.

Taking a deep breath, he shook the demon's hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, now it's over... wow. I never imagined people would be so appreciative and supportive of my writing, and I can't thank you all enough. It honestly goes beyond words.   
I've also been hinting at the possibility of a sequel, or some spin-off oneshots. That's still in the plan (My Ineffable Writing Plan) but I haven't started anything yet. I have a couple of different Good Omens crossover fics in the works, namely Supernatural and Harry Potter ones. If you're interested, keep a look out!   
With that, thank you all again, it's been an honour. Until next time.


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